Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION. reported by Alexander Tait, Clerk Of Session, one of the reporters for the faculty.
Subject_2 REPARATION

Finlay
v.
Ruddiman and Niell

Date: 28 January 1763

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Ruddiman, publisher of the Caledonian Mercury, and Niell, publisher of the Edinburgh Chronicle, for 17th September 1760, had published a paragraph, in which one John Finlay, a shoemaker, was said to be taken into custody for committing a rape on a servant-maid at Glasgow, which had occasioned her death. Of this, a few days after, Finlay complained to the publishers, who assured him that no such paragraph would have been published, had they suspected it to be false, as they now found it, or had they imagined that he was the person pointed at; neither was it possible for them to have had any such suspicion: in respect, that though his name was John Finlay, yet he was a merchant, and not a shoemaker; and further, they offered to publish any paragraph he pleased contradicting the former, and to join in any measure he should think proper for the vindication of his character. This Finlay rejected, and brought his action.

They published a most full and explicit recantation of the offensive article; and further, they proved that Mr Finlay was no shoemaker, nor had ever made a shoe in his life; that of late he had entered into a copartnery for exporting shoes to America, but that he never was known by the designation of a shoemaker until he added it to the title of merchant in the present libel.

“ The Lords found the publishers liable in damages and expenses.”

In this case there was not only an offer of recantation, but a recantation itself,—there was no particular animus injuriandi,—there was unacquaintance with the person, and uncertainty of the person. Yet all did not avail. As to the particular animus injuriandi, it was observed that the want of it was not material. It was clear that a person of the name and designation of John Finlay, shoemaker, was intended to be published as guilty of the most infamous crimes. A man who shoots among a crowd, or with his eyes shut, if he happens to kill, is as guilty as if he had taken a steady aim at a particular person. Mr Carnegy, when he killed Lord Strathmore, intended to kill Mr Lyon of Bridgeton, but it was adjudged to be murder. In cases of an atrocious accusation, or defamation, such as here, there is no necessity to prove an animus injuriandi; it will be presumed.