203 Mass. 470 | Mass. | 1909
The plaintiff is the proprietor of the Northern Express Company, which carries merchandise between Boston and many cities and towns in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. He also sublets portions of his office to the proprietors of other express companies doing business in or near Boston. The defendant corporation is the publisher of the “A B C Pathfinder and Dial Express List.” The bill contains the following averments: “ This publication is the only one of its kind issued or in circulation in Boston. The publication is in a form intended and calculated to create in the minds of the public the belief that 'it contains the namesx of all the reputable local ex
It is alleged that the other two defendants control a majority of the general local express companies whose names appear in the publication, that they have an acquired and dominating influence in this business in Boston, and are seeking to obtain an absolute monopoly of this kind of business, to the exclusion of the plaintiff. He avers that they h,ave conspired together to prevent the publication by the defendant corporation of any
The case comes before us on a demurrer, which, for the purposes of the hearing, admits the truth of all the averments of the bill.
The ground on which the plaintiff seeks relief is not that he has a right to compel the defendants or either of them to do, anything for his benefit, but that he has a right to have them refrain from intentionally doing anything, without legal justification, to his injury. The defendant corporation professes to give the public a full list of all the reputable express companies doing business in Boston. While it does not say in express words that the list is complete, that is the meaning which the publication is intended to convey and does convey. Its list is false and misleading, to the plaintiff’s injury. One purpose of the list is to show the public where they can go to get their express business done. Another purpose is to give the express companies named in the list the benefit of having their names and the nature of their business brought before the public who have such business to be done. The direct effect of the false statement is to point those who want the services of an express company to other companies, and to divert them from the plaintiff. They are told, in substance, that there is no such person as the plaintiff, and no such company as the Northern Express Company, engaged in this kind of business. The averment of the plaintiff that he is greatly injured in this way is no more than a statement of the natural result of publishing a directory of express companies with his name and the name of his company left out of it. An intentional act of this kind, without excuse, is a violation of his legal rights. It is the publication of a falsehood concerning him, the direct and natural effect of which is to injure him in his business. The public is misled by the intentional publication of an incorrect list. But the gist of the plaintiff’s action is the wrong done him by intentionally turning away from him those who otherwise would do business with him. He is entitled to a remedy for this wrong.
It is peculiarly a case for equitable relief. The wrong is a
The injury is to property, and it is not technically a libel upon the plaintiff. The rule that a court of equity will not enjoin the mere commission of a crime does not apply. The conduct complained of works a continuing and permanent injury to the plaintiff’s property. Upon proof of the facts set out in the bill, the plaintiff will be entitled to an injunction to protect him from the wrongful publication.
The defendants Kelley and Sampson are alleged, not only to have participated in the wrong, but to have instigated it. It is said that, for their own interests, and to obtain a monopoly in certain departments of the express business, they made false statements about the plaintiff to the other defendant, and threatened injury to the other defendant’s business, in order to induce wrongful publication. Upon proof of these facts and the other averments of the bill, the plaintiff is entitled to an injunction against these defendants, to prevent them from attempting to procure this wrongful kind of publication in the future. He has a right to have the other defendant relieved from the temptation to continue the wrongful publication, to which their misstatements and threats might subject it.
Their desire to advance their own interests, in competition, is not a justification for attempting to interfere with the plaintiff’s business by misstatements, and the making of a false and misleading publication. Carew v. Rutherford, 106 Mass. 1. Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555. Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212. Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92. Plant v. Woods, 176 Mass. 492. Berry v. Donovan, 188 Mass. 353.
The bill is not multifarious in seeking relief against all of these defendants. In different ways they were all participating in the infliction of an injury on the plaintiff and his subtenants. To a degree, each was responsible for the commission of the wrongful act. Their relations to the matter complained of were such that it was proper to join them, so that the plaintiff might obtain relief at one time against all the persons engaged in the interference with his rights of property, in order to protect him, if possible, from a repetition of the wrong. It is proper, too,
Demurrers overruled; defendants to have leave to answer.