Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/409

A GENERAL ANALYSIS OF TORT-RELATIONS. 393 under defective writs, and the doctrine of trespass ab initio; then the limitations in favor of a judicial officer, as to whom a poHcy of greater liberality may prevail, and as to sundry officials having authority of a mixed nature. (2) Where the injury involves a defamation, we have to consider the respective privileges of the judge, the pleader, the witness, and finally the reporter of the proceedings; for it would seem that the protection of "fair reports " rests peculiarly on the special needs of the administration of justice. 2. Coming now to the excuses resting on miscellaneous require- ments of external interests, we again find the general problem to be the degree of consideration to be given to those interests weighed against the harm done to individual innocent plaintiffs, and the results naturally differing according to the kind of harm involved. {a) Injury to property by trespass. Whether an intrusion is justifiable to avoid inconvenience or to save one's life ; whether buildings or merchandise may be destroyed to stop a fire ; — these examples indicate the sort of problem involved. The bearing of the admiralty principle of jettison is not always recognized. The question is not always kept separate from a distinct one, the quasi-contractual right to compensation for harm thus lawfully inflicted, {b) Nuisances. The extent to which one . may with impunity annoy and injure another by nuisances of smoke, etc., depends on the proper limits to be allowed to the necessities of the community in industrial and other activities, as balanced against the respect due to individual convenience, — as the decisions show. (<:) Interference with game, with running water, with electricity. Here, again, the policy of regarding the reasonable requirements of others is applied in special sets of circumstances. {d) Copyrights and patents. Here the interests of the com- munity find consideration (apparently) in the time limitations which throw open the invention to the public after a period suffi- cient to repay authors and inventors and sufficiently stimulate creative effort. (<?) Defamation. Here the policy receives application in two leading doctrines: (i) Communications in the protection or vin- dication of a legitimate interest of an individual or of a special interests of redress (for the law is the same whether the arresting citizen be the very one harmed by a theft, etc., or a third person) ; though to guard against abuse the limitations may well be, and are in part, stricter than for a commissioned ofificer.