GRACE ENGLISH, PETITIONER,
v.
J. W. ENGLISH ENTERPRISES, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, GRACE E. CHAMBERS, RAND-BRUC, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION AND GRACE E. CHAMBERS, AS GUARDIAN OF RANDY CHAMBERS AND BRUCE CHAMBERS, RESPONDENTS
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Upton House Cooler Corp. sought a writ of certiorari to review a circuit court's denial of its motion to dismiss an amended bill of complaint for trade libel. The Florida Supreme Court held that the alleged disparagement of the respondent's equipment through catalog descriptions constitutes trade libel, which is remediable only at law through damages, not through equitable injunctive relief, absent allegations of irreparable harm.
The court held that the respondent's claim, if viable, is for damages at law for trade libel, not equitable injunctive relief. Because the amended bill failed to allege irreparable damage and the conduct appears to constitute permissible trade talk rather than 'palming off,' equitable jurisdiction is absent. The case must proceed on the law side of the court for monetary damages only.
“One who without a privilege to do so publishes an untrue statement of fact which is disparaging to the quality of another's land, chattels or intangible things, under circumstances which would lead a reasonable man to foresee that the conduct of a third person as purchaser or lessee thereof would be determined thereby, is liable for pecuniary loss resulting to the other from the impairment of vendibility so caused.”
Definition of trade libel from the Restatement of Torts establishing the legal framework for respondent's potential claim.
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PER CURIAM.
Upon a consideration of this cause we have determined that the ends of justice require that the petitioner be granted leave to amend her complaint. , Consequently, the challenged order of the 3rd day of September, 1954, should be and it is hereby quashed with directions to the learned chancellor that he enter another order in which, after granting the motion to dismiss the amended bill, he shall give leave to petitioner to amend as to. all defendants.
It is so ordered.
ROBERTS, C. J., and TERRELL, HOB-SON and MATHEWS, JJ., concur.