Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 06
1 tribute will have a good effect on your general
2 reputation."
3
4 That is the end of the quote which Lord Moreton gave. He
5 then goes on:
6
7 "Such a method of assessing damages would do less than
8 justice to the Plaintiff, in my view, and it is based upon
9 suppositions which may be unfounded."
10
11 This is where the judgment chimes with what your Lordship
12 was saying the other day:
13
14 "A judge cannot tell how widely his judgment will be
15 reported and read, nor can he tell how far the Plaintiff's
16 general reputation will be improved by his complimentary
17 remarks. A simple verdict of a jury in favour of the
18 Plaintiff will no doubt have a good effect on his
19 reputation, and it is surely impossible to set a monetary
20 value upon the difference, if any, between the effect of
21 the jury's finding and the effect of the judge's finding,
22 plus a compliment from him."
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
25
26 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, the other error we have made, again it
27 was an error in the Defendants' favour, but the other error
28 we think now, having looked at Booth v Briscoe, which I now
29 know what your Lordship has done is to suppose that it was
30 right for us to say we were content with a single award for
31 both the Plaintiffs. On the authorities, although Booth v
32 Briscoe was clearly an exceptional case, I suppose in an
33 exceptional case that practice might still hold good, in
34 the ordinary case the Plaintiffs' rights are several,
35 separate and distinct. Although they can now join in an
36 action which before the Judicature Acts they could not,
37 they still have to be given separate awards of damages,
38 according to the merits of the case of each of them, as the
39 court assesses those merits.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But the position, you say, is still the same,
42 that if and in so far as I were to find that Ms. Steel and
43 Mr. Morris were privy to an endeavour with others to
44 publish the leaflet, then you say they are jointly liable
45 for that part but then severally liable for anything in
46 addition to that?
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: That is right. They are joint tort-feasors for
49 joint torts, and to the extent that they co-operate or
50 collaborate with others in the distribution and publication
51 of the leaflet, they are joint tort-feasors. Their
52 liability is for those publications joint and several, in
53 the sense that one could have sued one and not the other;
54 one can execute one and not the other. Where, however,
55 only one of them has been responsible for a publication,
56 then plainly the other one, if there is no liability in
57 that other one, cannot be and no judgment could be executed
58 against that other one who did not participate on that or
59 those occasions.
60
