AN IMPORTANT CASE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9165, 8 June 1908, Page 5

AN IMPORTANT CASE.

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Sydney, 1 June 7.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council delivered Judgment to-day in the case Macintosh v.Dnnn, an appeal from the decision of the High Court of Australia.

The case was oue of the most important tried here, and involved a question of privilege with regard to the right of publication by the defendants of certain mercantile reports to subscribers, in which they made statements as to plaintiff’s business. Defendants pleaded privilege, but the Court gave the plaintiff a verdict for £BOO. e On an appeal, the Full Court decided that it was privileged. An appeal followed to the High Court, which held that it was privileged. The case then went to to the Privy Council, with the result that the original verdict for the plaintiff stands. Received June 8, S. 15 a.m. London, June 7. The Times, commenting on the case Macintosh v. Dunn, says that both the Judicial Committee and the Supreme Court of Australia rely on the same authorities and recognise the same principles and facts, but they deduce opposite conclusions from the same premises. Lord Macnaghten, in delivering the Judgment of the Judicial Committee, declares that defendants volunteered information not from a sense of duty but in the course of a business conducted for profit.

The Times is not surprised if men of business are of opinion that it is their interest to obtain information regarding possible customers and that it is a pity the law cannot be further developed in order to give the necessary protection to those supplying such information, whether remunerated or not. The decision is vital to some well-known agencies in Britain and the colonies.