PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION AND PRIVILEGED OCCASION, DISTINCTION BETWEEN

• Date: 06 February 2019

"In Stuart v. Bell (1891) 2 Q.B. 341, Lopes, L.J., explained the rules governing qualified privileges as follows; "A confusion is often made between a privileged communication and a privileged occasion. It is for the jury to say whether a communication was privileged; but the question whether an occasion was privileged is for the Judge, and that question only arises when there has been publication to a third party. If the Judge holds that the occasion was privileged, there is an end of the plaintiff’s case, unless express malice is proved. Was the voluntary placing of the letter in the hands of the typewriter a privileged occasion? The rule, I think, is this - that when the circumstances are such as to cast on the defendant the duty of making the communication to a third party, the occasion is privileged. So, again, when he has an interest in making the communication to the third person, and the third person has a corresponding interest in receiving it. The duty may be legal, social or moral." See also Hunt v. Great Northern Railway (1891) 2 Q.B. 189 at 191. In the instant...