The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-23 00:00:00

THE RECORDER AND COMMON SERGEANT.

The Law, Parliamentary, and City Courts Committee
brought up a return, which had been ordered on the motion
of Mr. H. L. Taylor, from which it appeared that during
the eight years the present Tain-Ordortad held. 7
received as counsel for the several branches of the Corpora-
tion the sum of £4,540 odd, or an average of £567 10s. a
year, and that the Common Sergeant had received during
his period of office £4,574, or £594 7s. 6d. a year, indepen-
dently of theirrespective salaries; the salary of theßecorder
being £3,000, and that of the Common Sergeant £1,500.
The Court adjourned.

Miss Lougworth and the ‘, Saturday

Review."

On Wednesday the First Division of the Court of Ses-
sion gave judgment on the reclaiming note for the defenders
in the case of Maria Theresa Longworth, designing herself
the Hon. Maria Theresa Longworth, or Yelverton, against
Mr. Beresford Hope and Mr. Douglas Cook, proprietors of
the ,§aturday Review, in which the pursuer claims £3,000
damages for an alleged libel on her character published in
that journal on the 30th of July, 1864. Arrestments were
made of sums due to the defenders by various publishers in
Edinburgh, according to the mode of founding jurisdiction
in the Scottish Courts, in the case of defenders residing
furth of the country. The action was met by the defen-
ders with the preliminary pleas of want of jurisdiction and
forum non competens. Lord Ordinary Jerviswoode on the
14th of March issued an interlocutor repelling these pleas,
and appointing the case to be enrolled with a view to
further procedure. Their lordships now unanimously
sustained the judgment of the Lord Ordinary.
The Lord President said—We have nothing to do at
present with the character of the article in the Saturday
Review, be it slanderous or not. The questions we have to
deal with are the question of jurisdiction and the question
of forum non conzpetens. The defenders not being resi-
dent in this country, jurisdiction can only be founded
by arrestments made for that purpose; and the ques-
tion is whether, in respect of the arrestments made
in this case, there is jurisdiction in this Court. It is not
disputed that by arrestment used for that purpose the Court
does obtain jurisdiction in a great number of cases, and
that it is quite a common mode of proceeding against parties
furth of this country. But it is said that it does not apply
to all classes of cases, and that this is not one of the kind of
cases to which it opplies, being an action of damages for
alleged wrong, and not an action for the recovery of any
sum due on any mercantile transactions leading to damages.
There can be no doubt there are exceptional cases in which
the jurisdiction of the Court could not be founded by the
arrestment of movable securities ; but in reference to a
pecuniary claim for damages for slander it does not appear
to me that this objection has ever been sustained, and I
think it is very difficult to distinguish that class of cases
from those of any ordinary claim for debt. The next ques-
tion is the plea of forum non competens. That plea does not
mean that the forum is ono in which it is wholly incompe-
tent to deal with the questions raised. The plea is gene-
rally stated in reference to a class of cases in which the
Court has considered it more expedient for the ends of jus-
fiee that tho parties should seek for justice before another
forum—cases where it must be an obvious hardship or in-
justice in requiring the party to come here, or where the
means of ascertaining the truth more plainly existed
elsewhere, or where the law to be administered ought
more properly to be the law of another country. In
the present case the pursuer sets forth that she has re-
sided in Edinburgh, and that she is alitigant in Edinburgh,
as the records of this court show on more than oue occa-
sion ; and she complains that, in reference to a litigation
which has been depending here, and which was transferred
to the House of Lords, although subsequently brought
back to this forum,an article was published in the Saturday
Review which she describes as libellous. The defenders
allege that the pursuer is a domiciled Englishwoman, that
she has no property or residence in Scotland, and only
comes occasionally, and for a few days at a time, to Edin-
burgh, and while there she resides at a hotel. This is denied.
They say they are domiciledin England, and that they have
no business in Scotland, and no agencies, and that they are
ready to answer in the proper courts in England. Now, as
to the question of domicile, I do not think that has to do
with the question. As to residence, the pursuer describes
herself as resident in Edinburgh, and I do not think there
is enough set forth to make it clear that she has left Eng-
land and come to Scotland for the purpose of availing her-
self of the law of Scotland in this matter. It is not stated
by the defenders where she was when this publication
took place. She describes herself as resident in Scotland at
the date of raising this action, in August, 1864, and the
date of the publication of the article was in July. It
just comes to this—that this lady, though domiciled in
England, being here litigating—pretty frequently, it may
be—and residing, it appears, for some time here, hav-
ing interests here, and having litigations here, says-that
she is slandered by a publication issued from London, and
sent down to Edinburgh, where her litigations are going
on, and she says these slanders injure her in her character
and reputation. It is admitted that copies of this journal
are sent down to Scotland, and the pursuer's case is that
the alleged slander is thereby published in Scotland ; she
says it affects her character—that the publication in Scot-
land is an injury done to her in Scotland. Now, then, I see
no reason why a party coming here complaining of an injury
done to her in Scotland—it may be done to her in England
also as well as in Scotland—should not be entitled to pur-
sue in this form. You are told that there may be incon-
veniences attending this course because of differences in
the law of the two countries. It is not explained what
these differences are, but I am not prepared to hold that the
law of the other country is a law which is to regulate the
consequences of a libel circulated in this country. I am not
prepared to hold that if a person circulates in England, and
sends down and circulates in Scotland that which by the
law of Scotland is libellous and slanderous—even though by
the law of England it is not so—he is to be exemptedfromthe
consequences of the circulation of that slander in Scotland,
or that the party injured is to have no redress merely because
in the country in which the thing was first given forth it is
not a libel. It may be that in some countries there is no law
of libel at all ; but are persons in this country to be subjected
to injury consequent on the circulation of a slander, and the
law to offer them no redress? On the whole, lam of opinion
that this plea of non competens should be dismissed, and we
should adhere to the judgment of the Lord Ordinary in the
case.

Lord Curriehill concurred.
Lord Deas said he had arrived at the same result with
their lordships and the Lord Ordinary. Upon thisquestion
of founding jurisdictions he had doubt. The mode of
founding jurisdiction was applicable generally to pecuniary
claims, however they might arise. There were certain classes
of claims involving status in whichthere were exceptions to
this mode of founding jurisdiction, but it was imperative
on the party objecting to the jurisdiction to show grounds
for including any particular case among the exceptional
cases ; but that had not been done in this case. The only
matter on which he thought there could be any doubt in
this case was the second question, whether this was the
proper forum where the action ought to be tried. The
Court were not bound to exercise the jurisdiction if, by
exercising their jurisdiction they would be putting the de-
fender who objected to it to an unfair disadvantage ; but it
lay upon the party taking that objection to show that he
Would be clearly put to some unfair disadvantage by the
case being tried in this country. According to the law of
Scotland, the sending of any single copy of the newspaper
to any individual in Scotland, be it the lady herself, would
be sufficient to found an action for libel if the action were
otherwise competent. In this case, however, it was ad-
mitted that there was a publication in Scotland. If any
parties published a book or paper in the English lan-
guage in London—whether they gave it merely to their
newsagent or to any other limited class of people, or if they,
put it out of their ownhands—it would require a great deal
of consideration, if it came to Scotland, to say that they
would not be subjected to an action for libel for the contents
of the book or paper just as much as if they had sent the
book or paper direct. But they did not require to consider
that question, because it was admitted that copies of the
newspaper had been sent to parties in Scotland. Now,
then, take the case that, instead of slandering this lady,
which she says they did, the slander had been directed
against a Scotch merchant -carving on a large Widnes: