The appeal of Sir John Benn against the verdict of
£12,000 damages returned by a special jury at a trial before Mr. Justice Ridley was concluded in the Court of Appeal on Monday. Messrs. Griffiths and Bedell, plaintiffs in the original suit, carry on the business of installing the surface contact system of electric traction which had been adopted by the London County Council, and Sir John Benn, the leader of the Progressives on the London County Council, was found to have libelled them. The Master of the Rolls, with whom Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton and Lord Justice Buckley concurred, found that while the statements of Sir John Bean were inaccurate, intemperate, and tainted by political prejudice, they were only defamatory of the system and not of the plaintiffs in their business. The attack had not been proved to have caused any special damage, and the Master of the Rolls held it " extravagant to argue that an attack on a system must be regarded as an imputation upon the owner of the patents who supplied the parts and licenses the use of the system." The installation, it should. be explained, was undertaken by the officials of the London County Council. The appeal was accordingly allowed, and judgment entered for the defendant with costs in both courts.
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