1881 Bowen v. Hall. (C.A.) Q.B.D. The action was tried before Manisty, J., at the Staffordshire summer assizes of 1879, when that learned judge held that there was no evidence to enable the plaintiff to maintain his action against the defendants Hall and Fletcher, and he therefore directed a verdict to be entered for those defendants, and as regarded the defendant Pearson, the learned 336] judge was of opinion that, as that *defendant had not acted nor threatened to act contrary to the interim injunction, there was nothing to justify making such injunction perpetual. The plaintiff afterwards applied for and obtained à rule nisi against all the defendants for a new trial. The Queen's Bench Division made such rule absolute as against the defendants Hall and Fletcher, but it discharged the rule as to the defendant Pearson. The defendants Hall and Fletcher appealed to this court against the order for a new trial, and there was a cross appeal by the plaintiff against the order discharging the rule as to the defendant Pearson. Nov. 3, 1880. Jelf, Q.C. (J. O. Griffits, Q.C., with him), for the defendants Hall and Fletcher. A. T. Lawrence, for the defendant Pearson. H. Matthews, Q.C., and Anstie, for the plaintiff. During the argument the court expressed themselves to be satisfied that there was evidence to go to the jury as against all the defendants. An unsuccessful attempt was made by counsel for the defendants to distinguish the present case from that of Lumley v. Gye ('), on the ground that there was nothing in the terms of the contract between the plaintiff and Pearson to require the personal services of the latter. On the part of the plaintiff it was contended that there existed between Pearson and the plaintiff the strict relationship of master and servant, but that if not, then the case came within the authority of Lumley v. Gye ('). It became necessary therefore to determine whether the judgment of the majority of the judges who decided Lumley v. Gye ('), or that of the dissenting judge (Coleridge, J.) was to be supported by a court of appeal. On this point, the court took time to consider its judgment, and counsel in the meanwhile were to be at liberty to furnish the court with a reference to any further authority bearing on the decision in that case (2). Cur. adv. vult. (1) 2 E. & B., 216; 22 L. J. (Q.B.), 463. (2) The following is a list of the authorities with which the court was after. wards furnished, viz.: Evans v. Walton (Law Rep., 2 C. P., 615); Cattle v. Stocklon Waterworks Company (Law Rep., 10 Q. B., 453, 14 Eng. R., 276); Haskins v. (C.A.) Q.B.D. Bowen v. Hall. 1881 *Feb. 5. BRETT, L.J.: The Lord Chancellor [337 agrees with me in the judgment I am about to read, and it is to be taken therefore as the judgment of the Lord Chancellor as well as of myself. In this case, we were of opinion at the hearing, that the contract was one for personal service, though not one which established strictly for all purposes the relation of master and servant between the plaintiff and Pearson. We were of opinion that there was evidence to justify a finding that Pearson had been induced by the defendants to break his contract of service, that he had broken it, and had thereby, in fact, caused some injury to the plaintiff. We were of opinion that the act of the defendants was done with knowledge of the contract between the plaintiff and Pearson, was done in order to obtain an advantage for one of the defendants at the expense of the plaintiff, was done from a wrong motive, and would therefore justify a finding that it was done in that sense maliciously. There remained nevertheless the question, whether there was any evidence to be left to the jury against the defendants Hall and Fletcher, it being objected that Pearson was not a servant of the plaintiff. The case was accurately within the authority of the case of Lumley v. Gye('). If that case was rightly decided, the objection in this case failed. The only question then which we took time to consider was whether the decision of the majority of the judges in that case should be supported in a court of error. That case was so elaborately discussed by the learned judges who took part in it, that little more can be said about it, than whether, after careful consideration, one agrees rather with the judgments of the majority, or with the most careful, learned, and able judgment of Mr. Justice Coleridge. The decision of the majority will be seen, on a careful consideration of their judgments, to have been founded upon two chains of reasoning. First, that wherever a man does an act which in law and in fact is a wrongful act, and such an act as may, as a natural and probable consequence of it, produce injury to another, and which in the particular case does produce such an injury, an action on the case will lie. This is the proposition to be deduced from the case of Ashby v. White (). If these conditions are satisfied, the action does not the less lie *because the [338 natural and probable consequence of the act complained of is an act done by a third person: or because such act so done by the third person is a breach of duty or contract by him, or an act illegal on his part, or an act otherwise impos(1) 2 E. & B., 216; 22 L. J. (Q.B.), 463. (2) 1 Sm. L. C., 8th ed., p. 264. 1881 Bowen v. Hall. (C.A.) Q.B.D. ing an actionable liability on him. It has been said that the law implies that the act of the third party, being one which he has free will and power to do or not to do, is his own wilful act, and therefore is not the natural or probable result of the defendants' act. In many cases that may be so, but if the law is so to imply in every case, it will be an implication contrary to manifest truth and fact. It has been said that if the act of the third person is a breach of duty or contract by him, or is an act which it is illegal for him to do, the law will not recognize that it is a natural or probable consequence of the defendant's act. Again, if that were so held in all cases, the law would in some refuse to recognize what is manifestly true in fact. If the judgment of Lord Ellenborough in Vicars v. Wilcocks (') requires this doctrine for its support, it is in our opinion wrong. We are of opinion that the propositions deduced above from Ashby v. White (2) are correct. If they be applied to such a case as Lumley v. Gye (3), the question is whether all the conditions are by such a case fulfilled. The first is that the act of the defendants which is complained of must be an act wrongful in law and in fact. Merely to persuade a person to break his contract, may not be wrongful in law or fact as in the second case put by Coleridge, J. (). But if the persuasion be used for the indirect purpose of injuring the plaintiff, or of benefiting the defendant at the expense of the plaintiff, it is a malicious act which is in law and in fact a wrong act, and therefore a wrongful act, and therefore an actionable act if injury ensues from it. We think that it cannot be doubted that a malicious act, such as is above described, is a wrongful act in law and in fact. The act complained of in such a case as Lumley v. Gye (3), and which is complained of in the present case, is therefore, because malicious, wrongful. That act is a persuasion by the defend339] ant of a third *person to break a contract existing between such third person and the plaintiff. It cannot be maintained that it is not a natural and probable consequence of that act of persuasion that the third person will break his contract. It is not only the natural and probable consequence, but by the terms of the proposition which involves the success of the persuasion, it is the actual consequence. Unless there be some technical doctrine to oblige one to say so, it seems impossible to say correctly, in point of fact, that the breach of contract is too remote a consequence of (1) 8 East, 1; 2 Sm. L. C., 8th ed., (3) 2 E. & B., 216; 22 L. J. (Q.B.), p. 554. (2) 1 Sm. L. C., 8th ed., p. 261. 463. (4) 2 E. & B., at p. 247. (C.A.) Q.B.D. Bowen v. Hall. 1881 the act of the defendants. The technical objections alluded to above have been suggested as the consequences of the judgment in Vicars v. Wilcocks ('). But that judgment when so used or relied on seems to us to be disapproved in the opinions given in the House of Lords in Lynch v. Knight (3), and seems to us when so used to be unreasonable. In the case of Lumley v. Gye (3), and in the present case, the third condition is fulfilled, namely, that the act of the defendant caused an injury to the plaintiff, unless again it can be said correctly that the injury is too remote from the cause. But that raises again the same question as has been just dismissed. It is not too remote if the injury is the natural and probable consequence of the alleged cause. That is stated in all the opinions in Lynch v. Knight (). The injury is in such a case in law as well as in fact a natural and probable consequence of the cause, because it is in fact the consequence of the cause, and there is no technical rule against the truth being recognized. It follows that in Lumley v. Gye (), and in the present case all the conditions. necessary to maintain an action on the case are fulfilled. Another chain of reasoning was relied on by the majority in Lumley v. Gye ("), and powerfully combated by Coleridge, J. It was said that the contract in question was within the principle of the Statute of Laborers, that is to say, that the same evil was produced by the same means, and that as the statute made such means when employed in the case of master and servant, strictly so called, wrongful, the common law ought to treat similar means employed with regard to parties standing in a similar relation as also *wrongful. If, in order to support Lumley v. Gye(), [340 it had been necessary to adopt this proposition, we should have much doubted, to say the least. The reasoning of Coleridge, J., upon the second head of his judgment seems to us to be as nearly as possible, if not quite, conclusive. But we think it is not necessary to base the support of the case upon this latter proposition. We think the case is better supported upon the first and larger doctrine. And we are therefore of opinion that the judgment of the Queen's Bench Division was correct, and that the principal appeal must be dismissed. LORD SELBORNE, L.C.: I have now to add the conclusion to which this court has unanimously come with regard to the cross appeal by the plaintiff against the defendant Pearson, who succeeded before the Queen's Bench Division in (1) 8 East, 1; 2 Sm. L. C., 8th ed., p. 554. (2) 9 H. L. C., 577. (3) 2 E. & B., 216; 22 L. J. (Q.B.), 463. 1881 Bowen v. Hall. (C.A.) Q.B.D. getting the rule for a new trial discharged or refused as to himself, while it was made absolute as to the other defendants. Pearson was the workman, who, having a special knowledge or skill in the glazing of bricks, which gave a peculiar and exceptional value to his services, contracted with the plaintiff to work for him exclusively if required so to do, during a certain period of time (the plaintiff being reciprocally bound to employ no other person in the same kind of work during the same period), and was afterwards induced by the other defendants to break that contract. The relief asked against him in the action was injunction; an interim injunction was granted before the trial; and the case went down for trial against all the defendants at the same time and upon the same issues of fact. The effect of leaving the verdict to stand in Pearson's favor would be to entitle him to judgment in the action, which cannot be right if his contract with the plaintiff was broken in the manner alleged: and if upon the evidence given at the trial that question of fact could properly be now determined in Pearson's favor, it is impossible that upon the same evidence it could also be right to order a new trial as against the other defendants. We think, therefore, that the plaintiff's appeal must be allowed, and that there ought to be a new trial as to all the 341] defendants. But as, when the proper time comes to give final judgment, the consequences of a verdict for the plaintiff will not necessarily be the same as to Pearson, and as to the other defendants, we think that the judge at the trial ought to give such directions to the jury as will enable the court, if the plaintiff should succeed, to deal with the particular case of this defendant as may be just. For this purpose, they ought to be directed in the event of a verdict for the plaintiff to find specially the amount of damages which they think ought to be awarded against Pearson, first, in the event of the court thinking his case a proper one both for an injunction and for damages; and, secondly, in the event of the court thinking it a proper case for damages only and not also for an injunction. (See Lord Cairns' Act (21 & 22 Vict. c. 27), s. 2, and the Judicature Act, 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 66), s. 2, subs. 6; and s. 76.) The cases of Hills v. Croll (), Dietrichsen v. Cabburn (2), and Lumley v. Wagner (), and the authorities in equity as to covenants in restraint of trade within certain limits of time or place, may possibly require to be considered, before the (1) 2 Phill., 60; 1 D. M. & G., 627 n. (3) 1 D. M. & G., 604, 627. (*) 2 Phill, 52, |