Court case[1910] AC 20

The appellants, proprietors of the Sunday Chronicle, published an article by their Paris correspondent describing a motor festival at Dieppe. It contained a humorous passage about "Artemus Jones", described as a churchwarden at Peckham, who was seen at Dieppe with a woman who was not his wife, "the life and soul of a gay little band". The writer and the editor said that the name was invented for a fictitious character and that they did not know of anyone called Artemus Jones. In fact there was a real Thomas Artemus Jones, a barrister on the North Wales circuit who had at one time contributed to the paper; he was not a churchwarden and did not live at Peckham. Several of his friends who read the article believed that it referred to him. He sued for libel, and the jury awarded him 1,750 pounds.

The House of Lords (Lord Loreburn L.C. delivering the leading speech) dismissed the appeal and upheld the verdict. Libel is a tortious act; what matters is not what the writer intended but what the words conveyed to those who knew the plaintiff. A person who publishes a statement charges at his peril; if reasonable readers acquainted with the plaintiff understand the words to refer to him, the defendant is liable although he meant someone else or no one at all. The fact that the name was invented was no defence. The defendant's intention may be relevant to damages, but not to liability.