Malicious Falsehood

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 discrediting the product, service or business of another person which causes customers not to patronize the business, thereby causing financial loss to the person.
It is slander or libel of title, goods, services or business. It is a commercial defamation. It is any expression calculated to disparage another person’s business and which causes damage to the person’s business.
The tort of injurious falsehood is a written or oral falsehood, maliciously published which causes damage to the person’s business. Injurious falsehood is the publication or business whereby the person suffers damage in his business.
In the case of Radcliffe V. Evans Bowen LJ in the English Court of Appeal explained injurious falsehood thus:
“An action will lie for written or oral falsehood… 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 plaintiff’s title, business, products, or services which hamper the offering of such goods or services to the public. It is any statement discrediting a person’s business which hampers the person in the dispensing of the goods or services to the public because of bad publicity. (2) Slander of goods: Slander of goods is the discrediting of the quality of the products, or services of another person, or (3) Slander of title and goods: This is a single act of injurious falsehood condemning the title and the quality of products, or services of another person.
The 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 andoffers remedy where loss has been suffered due to disparagement of the business.  It protects the goodwill and reputation of a business which a person has built over time from being destroyed by malicious and envious rivals or persons.  Injurious falsehood in any lie which damages a business. Hyurious falsehood offers protection and remedy where the goodwill of a 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 a business. Passing off prevents people from wrongly taking advantage and enjoying the goodwill of another person, by selling their products or services as those of that other person.
In the case of Wren V. Nield (1836) 132 ER453, the defendant falsely and maliciously alleged that the plaintiff was offering certain goods for sale, in breach of patent vested in a third party.  The plaintiff brought action for the slander of his products.
The court held that the defendant was liable for injurious falsehood.