Tort Law

Huth v. Huth

[1915] 3 KB 32

Facts

• Captain Huth wrote a letter addressed to his wife.
• The letter allegedly contained statements concerning the validity of the marriage and the legitimacy of their children.
• If communicated to another person, the statements were capable of seriously damaging the children’s reputation.
• Huth placed the letter in an envelope.
• The envelope was not securely sealed or was sent in a manner that made opening physically easy.
• A household servant or butler handling the mail opened and read the letter.
• The servant did so out of curiosity and contrary to his duty.
• The contents were thereby communicated to a third party.
• The children brought proceedings for libel.
• They argued that sending an unsealed or inadequately secured letter made third-party reading foreseeable.
• Huth denied publication, maintaining that the servant’s unauthorised conduct could not be attributed to him.

• Whether sending a defamatory letter in an unsealed envelope amounted to publication.
• Whether the servant’s unauthorised reading was a foreseeable consequence of the sender’s conduct.
• What connection between the defendant and third-party communication is required.

• Defamation requires publication to at least one person other than the claimant.
• The defendant is responsible where third-party communication is:
o intended;
o authorised; or
o the natural and probable consequence of the method of transmission.
• A defendant is not ordinarily liable where a third person obtains the communication through an unauthorised and unforeseeable act.
• Sending an unsealed letter does not automatically establish publication.
• The court examines whether the sender knew or ought reasonably to have expected that someone other than the addressee would read it.
• A servant who opens private correspondence purely from curiosity may act outside the ordinary course of duty.

• The letter was intended for Huth’s wife, not for the servant.
• The servant had no authority or proper reason to read private correspondence.
• His action was a deliberate departure from his employment duties.
• The mere fact that an envelope was unsealed did not prove that Huth expected or intended household staff to inspect its contents.
• Many letters may pass through servants or postal employees without a legal expectation that they will violate confidentiality.
• Publication could have been established if Huth knew that:
o his wife ordinarily had letters read aloud by a servant;
o household practice required servants to open her correspondence; or
o the particular method made reading by another person probable.
• No such circumstances were proved.
• The servant’s curiosity was therefore treated as an independent and unauthorised act rather than a natural consequence for which Huth was responsible.
• Although the contents were potentially defamatory, actionable defamation could not arise without legally attributable publication.

• The Court of Appeal held that publication had not been established.
• The servant’s unauthorised opening of the letter was not shown to be a natural or probable consequence of Huth’s method of sending it.
• An unsealed envelope did not by itself make the sender liable.
• The defamation claim therefore failed.