Tort (158)
HELD:
"The Nigerian jurisprudence on the constitutive ingredients which a plaintiff in an action for libel must prove now spans a wide compass.
HELD:
"In an action for defamation, there is no need to prove malice. Malice is implied from the mere publication of the defamatory matter.
HELD:
"It is true that the appellant pleaded malice. As stated earlier, in a defamation matter, where the words complained of are found to be defamatory and are shown to have been published to a third party other than the complainant, malice is presumed.
HELD:
"Text writers and jurists are ad idem that the province of the tort of defamation, either in its written genre [technically known as libel] or in its transient species [called slander], is the injury occasioned on another person's reputation by either written or spoken words,
HELD:
"It is noteworthy that the appellant in this appeal is a limited liability company.
HELD:
"Defamation, as a tort, whether as libel or slander, has been judicially defined to consist of the publication to a third person or persons of any words or matter which tend to lower the person defamed in the estimation of right thinking members of society generally or to cut him off from society or to expose him to hatred, contempt, opprobrium or ridicule or to injure his reputation in his office, trade or profession or to injure his financial credit.
HELD:
"...No complaint in the letter, Exhibit B (above reproduced), was made against the Appellant, as the plaintiff, who sued as "CHILKIED SECURITY SERVICES AND DOG FARMS LIMITED".
HELD:
"In the instant appeal, the respondents successfully made out their defence of fair comment or qualified privilege hence, rebutting the presumption of technical malice or malice in law.