Injurious Falsehood Is Damaging

Injurious falsehood is a false and injurious statement
discrediting the reputation of the goods, services or business of another person, thereby causing loss of business and damage to him. It is any oral or written statement or act discreting the product, service or business of another person which causes customers not to partronise the business, thereby occasioning financials loss to the person. It is a slander or libel of title, goods, services or business.
It is a commercial defamation. It is an expression calculated to disparage another persons business and which actually causes damage to the person’s business. The tort of injurious falsehoods is a written or oral falsehood, maliciously  published which causes damage to another person’s business.  Injurious falsehood is the publication of any damaging statement about a person’s goods, services or business, whereby the persons suffers damage in his business. In Ratcliffe V. Evans (1892) 2QB524 CA, Bowen L. J. in the English Court of Appeal explained injurious falsehood thus: “An action will lie for written or oral falsehoods … where they are maliciously published, where they are calculated in the ordinary course of things to produce and where they do produce actual damage”.
An injurious falsehood may be aimed at or consist of:
Slander of title: slander of title is the discrediting of a plaintiffs title, business, products or services which hampers the offering of such goods or services to the public. It is a statement discrediting a person’s business, which hampers the person in dispensation of goods or services to the public because of bad publicity.
Slander of goods: Slander of goods is the discrediting of teh quality of teh product or services of another person; or
Slander of title and goods: This is a single act of injurious falsehood condemning the title and the quality of goods or services of another person.
Purpose of the Tort of Injurious falsehood
The primary purpose of the tort of injurious falsehood is to protect the goodwill and reputation of a business and its product and services and offer remedy where loss has been suffered due to disparagement of the business. It protects the goodwill and reputation of business which a person has built over time from been destroyed by malicious and envious rivals or persons. Injurious falsehood is any lie which damages a business. Injurious falsehood offers protection and remedy where the goodwill of business has been discredited or damaged. The law of defamation protects the reputation of a person, while injurious falsehood protects the goodwill and reputation of business. Passing off prevents people from wrongly taking advantage and enjoying the goodwill of the business of another by selling their products or services as those of another person.
In Wren V. Nield (1836) 132 ER 453, the defendant falsely and maliciously alleged that the plaintiff was offering certain goods for sale in breach of a patent vested in a third party. The plaintiff brought an action for slander of his products. The court held that the defendant was liable for injurious falsehood.
Examples of Interest Protected By Injurious Falsehood. The tort of injurious falsehood prohibits any malicious falsehood that will damage or destroy the goodwill or reputation of any property, goods, products or services being offered for sale by a person or business organization. Thus, injurious falsehood protects the goodwill of properties such as land whether vested in possession or not; (2) Trademarks, patent, tradename, copy right and other merchandise marks. (3) The title, brandname, or quality of goods or products. (4) The quality of services being offered for sale and company etc.

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