Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This was a motion by the pursuer for a new trials on the ground that the verdict was contrary to evidence. The circumstances out of which the trial arose were shortly as follows:—The defenders, on 27th February 1866, inserted in their newspaper a paragraph, headed “Railway Negotiations,” having reference to the position of the Union Railway and the purchase of certain property belonging to Bailie Brown. On 1st March they expressed their regret that statements had appeared in their previous paper under the above heading, which, they were now informed, were in almost every essential particular at variance with fact. They stated that the information on which the paragraph had been founded had been vouched for by Mr O. W. Muir, arid was inadvertently allowed to appear without proper authentication. Mr Muir wrote to the editor of the Daily Mail a letter, which was published on 5th March, contradicting the statement that he had vouched for the accuracy of the paragraph in question, and saying that he did not see it till published. He complained of the mention of Bailie Brown's name in connection with the proceedings in London, as being equally unjustifiable with the mention of his own, and objected otherwise to the account given by the reporter of his conversation with him. To this the Daily Mail appended a letter by their reporter, to the effect, that although Mr Muir had not seen the paragraph—and it was never said he did—he had vouched for the information on which it was written. That information was taken down in shorthand, word for word, from his own lips. Some information he had given, as to the abandonment of a high level station in Buchanan Street by the Caledonian Railway Company many years ago, was omitted as irrelevant; and the only addition made to his words, in transcribing them for publication, was the qualifying phrase, “we understand.” The following note by the editor was added:—“We need hardly say which of the two versions of the above story we believe the true one, and have only again to apologise to our readers for the inadvertence by which any statement emanating from such a quarter found admission into our columns.”

Mr Muir then brought an action of damages against the publisher and proprietors of the Daily Mail, on the ground that the said notices and paragraphs, the substance of which is given above, falsely and calumniously represented that he had communicated to the defenders' employees, for the purpose of publication in their newspaper, statements in every essential particular at variance with fact; that he was a person whose word was not to be believed; and that any statements he might make were unworthy of credit, and unfit for publication in a newspaper. Damages were laid at £1000.

The case was tried Lord Barcaple and a jury in April last. The jury unanimously found for the defenders.

Scott, for the pursuer, moved for a rule on the defenders, to show cause why a new trial should not be granted, on the ground that the verdict was contrary to evidence.

The Court unanimously refused to grant the rule.