On the trial of an action claiming damages for a libel alleged to be contained in a privileged communication the judge charged the jury as to privilege and added "if the defendant made the communication bond fide, believing it to be true, and the privilege existed that I have endeavoured to explain, then there would be no action against him."
Held, that plaintiff was entitled to a more explicit statement of the law on a point directly affecting the proof of an issue the burden of which was upon him.
One portion of the communication containing the alleged libel might be read as importing a grave charge against the plaintiff or as an innocuous statement of fact.
Held, that as to prove malice the writer's knowledge of the falsity of the fact was the material point the sense in which he may have used the words was the governing consideration.
The judge's charge was not open to objection for want of an explicit reference to pre-existing unfriendliness between the parties as proof of malice where the only evidence of unfriendliness consisted of hard things said of the defendant by the plaintiff. Judgment of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (32 N. S. Rep. 129) affirmed, Gwynne and Sedgewick JJ. dissenting.
APPEAL from a decision of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (1) setting aside a verdict for the defendant and ordering a new trial.
The letter containing the alleged libel of the plaintiff by the defendant, and other facts bearing on the questions raised on the appeal are set out in the judgment of the court.
*PRESENT :-Taschereau, Gwynne, Sedgewick, King and Girouard JJ.