BLS LLB 5 Years Sem 5 Torts 2021-22 Question Paper with Solutions

The answer is (a) There is no wrong without a remedy.

Ubi jus ibi remedium means literally "where there is a right, there is a remedy", and it is commonly rendered as there is no wrong without a remedy. The word jus here means the legal right to be protected, and remedium the right of action by which it is enforced.

The maxim was the foundation of Ashby v White (1703), where a returning officer wrongfully refused the plaintiff's vote. Holt CJ said that if the plaintiff has a right he must of necessity have a means to vindicate it, and a remedy if he is injured in the exercise of it; want of right and want of remedy are reciprocal.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) Legal injury without damage is injuria sine damno, a different maxim, though closely related, since it is the situation in which ubi jus ibi remedium does its work.

The answer is (c) No man can take advantage of his own wrong.

The maxim is a rule of general application in law, and in tort it produces two familiar consequences: the defence of ex turpi causa non oritur actio, that no action arises from a base cause, and the old rule in Merryweather v Nixan (1799) that there is no contribution between joint tort-feasors, which rested on the principle that a wrongdoer cannot found a claim on his own wrong.

Why the others are wrong:

• (a) states the maxim backwards, which is the trap in the question.

The answer is (a) Making a false statement about a person.

Defamation is the publication of a false statement which tends to lower a person in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or to make them shun or avoid him, or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule. The three essentials are that the statement is defamatory, that it refers to the plaintiff, and that it is published.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) Using a weapon belongs to assault and battery, which are trespass to the person, not defamation.
• (c) At least 5 people to be present is invented. Publication to one person other than the plaintiff is enough; there is no numerical requirement anywhere in the law. Dictating a defamatory letter to a typist is publication.
• (d) A contract is irrelevant. Defamation protects reputation, a right in rem owed to persons generally, and has nothing to do with any agreement.

• (b) Reasonable care is no defence. Care is an answer in negligence, where the question is the defendant's conduct. In nuisance the question is the result, that is whether the interference is unreasonable, so however carefully the activity is conducted it remains a nuisance if the interference is excessive.
• (c) Public benefit is no defence. That the defendant's factory employs a thousand people goes to the discretion to refuse an injunction and award damages in lieu, not to whether the tort has been committed. Otherwise the cost of a profitable enterprise would be shifted onto its neighbours without compensation.

• (c) Availability of legal duty describes only the existence of a duty. A duty which exists and is observed produces no liability at all; it is the violation that matters.
• (d) Legal damage is nearer the mark but still wrong, and the reason is worth knowing. Many torts are actionable per se, that is without any damage at all: trespass, libel, assault and false imprisonment. If legal damage were the gist, none of these would be actionable, yet all are.

The answer is (d): "In tort, the damages are fixed according to the terms and conditions" is NOT correct.

Damages in tort are unliquidated, that is assessed by the court after the wrong, on the principle of restitutio in integrum. They are not fixed by any terms and conditions, because there are no terms and conditions: the parties to a tort have made no agreement with each other. Damages fixed by terms and conditions are a feature of contract, where the parties may agree in advance on liquidated damages.

Why the other three are correct statements:

• (a) is Winfield's definition itself: the duty in tort is primarily fixed by law, not by the parties.

The answer is (a) Damage suffered by consent is not a cause of action.

Volenti non fit injuria means to a willing person no injury is done. Where the plaintiff has freely and voluntarily, with full knowledge of the nature and extent of the risk, agreed to run it, he cannot afterwards sue for the harm it causes.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) is the same sentence with the negative removed, and so states the exact opposite of the maxim.
• (c) Damage without legal injury is damnum sine injuria.
• (d) Legal injury without damage is injuria sine damno.

The answer is (b) Strict liability.

Rylands v Fletcher (1868) LR 3 HL 330 is the foundation of strict liability in the common law: liability without proof of fault. Blackburn J stated the rule: "The person who for his own purposes brings on his land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape." Lord Cairns LC added the requirement of a non-natural use of land.

Why the others are wrong:

• (a) Fault liability is the opposite of what the case decided. The defendant had employed competent independent contractors and was himself not negligent, and he was still held liable.

The answer the examiner wants is (a) Who did or join in the commission of a wrongful act.

Joint tort-feasors are persons who participate in the commission of the same wrongful act, whether by doing it themselves or by joining in it, so that in law they are treated as having committed one tort and not several. The recognised categories are principal and agent, master and servant, partners in a firm, and persons acting in furtherance of a common design. Their liability is joint and several: the plaintiff may sue any one and recover the whole, though he can have only one satisfaction.

Why the others are wrong:

The answer is (a) Pollock.

Sir Frederick Pollock wrote the sentence, and it is his rejection of the subjective theory of negligence. On the subjective theory, associated with Salmond, negligence is a state of mind, a want of care or an attitude of indifference. Pollock's answer is that if diligence is plainly a way of behaving rather than a state of mind, then its opposite must be a way of behaving too. Negligence is therefore a type of conduct, judged objectively against the standard of the reasonable man, which is the objective theory.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) Winfield is associated with the general-principle theory of tortious liability (see Q1), not with this sentence.

The answer is (a) Donoghue v Stevenson.

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 is the foundation of the modern law of negligence and of the manufacturer's duty to the ultimate consumer.

Facts. The appellant's friend bought her a bottle of ginger beer at a cafe in Paisley. The bottle was of dark opaque glass and sealed, so its contents could not be examined. She drank part of it, and when the rest was poured out the decomposed remains of a snail floated out. She suffered shock and severe gastro-enteritis, and sued the manufacturer, with whom she had no contract at all.

The answer is (c) Right to seek redressal.

Section 6(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 states the right as "the right to seek redressal against unfair trade practices or restrictive trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers". Compensation is a form of redressal, so a claim for compensation against an unfair trade practice is made under this right.

Why the others are wrong:

• (a) Right to choose is the right to be assured, wherever possible, of access to a variety of goods and services at competitive prices. It concerns the state of the market, not the remedy.

The answer is (b) State Government.

Under Section 9(a) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 the State Government establishes a District Forum in each district by notification, and under Section 10(1A) the President and members are appointed by the State Government on the recommendation of a selection committee consisting of the President of the State Commission, the Secretary of the Law Department of the State and the Secretary in charge of consumer affairs.

Why the others are wrong:

• (a) Central Government establishes the National Commission under Section 9(c).

The answer is (a) Direct consequences of his act.

In re Polemis and Furness, Withy and Co [1921] 3 KB 560 laid down the directness test of remoteness of damage: once the defendant is shown to have been negligent, he is liable for all the direct consequences of his act, however unforeseeable they may be.

Facts. A ship was chartered to carry a cargo including tins of petrol, which leaked, filling the hold with vapour. While the cargo was being unloaded, the charterers' servants negligently let a plank fall into the hold. The plank struck something, produced a spark, ignited the petrol vapour and destroyed the ship. Some damage from the falling plank was foreseeable; destruction by fire was not. The charterers were held liable for the whole loss, because it was the direct consequence of the negligent act.

Why the others are wrong:

The answer is (a) Conversion.

Trover was the old form of action by which a plaintiff recovered the value of goods which the defendant had wrongfully converted to his own use. The action took its name from the French trouver, to find, because the plaintiff formally alleged that he had lost the goods and the defendant had found and converted them. The modern name of the tort is conversion.

Conversion is any dealing with goods in a manner inconsistent with the right of the person entitled to possession, which has the effect of denying that right or asserting a right inconsistent with it. Wrongfully taking, using, selling, destroying, delivering to the wrong person or refusing to deliver up on demand are all conversions.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) Damage is the harm suffered, a fact.
• (c) Damages are the pecuniary compensation awarded, a remedy.
• (d) Wrong is the general word for any breach of duty and names no particular tort.

The answer is (a) All Goods and Services.

The Consumer Protection Act is a general statute covering the whole field of consumer transactions. "Goods" is defined in Section 2(1)(i) of the 1986 Act by adopting the definition in the Sale of Goods Act, 1930, and "service" in Section 2(1)(o) is defined inclusively as "service of any description which is made available to potential users", with a list that is illustrative and not exhaustive: banking, financing, insurance, transport, processing, supply of electrical or other energy, board or lodging, housing construction, entertainment, amusement and the purveying of news or other information.

Why the others are wrong:

• (b) Particular Goods and Services would make the Act a schedule-based statute, which it is not. Its whole design is general.

The class of civil wrongs is wider, and three other members of it are expressly excluded by the definition:

1. Breach of contract. The duty is fixed by the parties themselves, is owed only to the other party (a right in personam), and the damages may be liquidated. A tort duty is fixed by law, owed to persons generally (a right in rem), and the damages are unliquidated.
2. Breach of trust. The duty arises from a fiduciary relationship, was historically enforced in equity, and the remedy is liquidated, being an account of what the trustee has wrongly received or lost to the estate.
3. Other merely equitable obligations, enforced by equitable remedies such as specific performance and account.

To these the modern law adds civil wrongs which are exclusively statutory and carry their own remedies, such as many claims under the Consumer Protection Act, the Motor Vehicles Act and industrial legislation, and wrongs whose remedy is restitutionary rather than compensatory, such as quasi-contract under Sections 68 to 72 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872.

C. The distinguishing marks of a tort. A civil injury is a tort only if it satisfies all of the following:

1. it is a wrongful act or omission, the violation of a duty fixed by law;

The rule of strict liability is the rule in Rylands v Fletcher (1868) LR 3 HL 330: a person who for his own purposes brings on his land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes must keep it in at his peril, and is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape. Lord Cairns LC added the requirement of a non-natural use of land.

The rule is subject to five exceptions, each of which, if established, defeats the claim.

1. Plaintiff's own default.

Where the damage is caused by the plaintiff's own act, or arises from the abnormal sensitivity of his property, no action lies.

Ponting v Noakes (1894): the plaintiff's horse reached over the boundary, ate the leaves of the defendant's yew tree and died. The defendant was not liable, because there had been no escape of the yew tree and the damage was due to the horse's own intrusion.

Where the plaintiff has expressly or impliedly consented to the presence of the source of danger and there has been no negligence on the defendant's part, the rule does not apply. This is volenti non fit injuria in the setting of strict liability.

Its most important form is the common benefit exception: where the dangerous thing is kept for the benefit of both plaintiff and defendant, as with a water supply, a sprinkler system or a lift serving the whole of a building, the tenants are taken to have consented. Carstairs v Taylor (1871): rainwater collected in a box in the roof for the benefit of both landlord and tenant escaped when a rat gnawed a hole in it; the landlord was not liable.

4. Act of a third party (act of a stranger).

Where the escape is caused by the unforeseeable act of a stranger over whom the defendant has no control, the defendant is not liable.

Box v Jubb (1879): the overflow of the defendant's reservoir was caused by the act of a third party in emptying his own drain into it. Not liable.

Contrast Charing Cross Electricity Supply Co v Hydraulic Power Co (1914), where the company had a statutory power but no duty to maintain high pressure, and was held liable. The distinction between an absolute authority, where the act must be done, and a conditional one, where it may be done only if it can be done without infringing private rights, is decisive.

The leading authority is Ryan v Youngs (1938), where the driver of a lorry died suddenly at the wheel from a cause which could not have been anticipated and the vehicle ran on and injured the plaintiff; the employers were not liable, the event being treated as an inevitable accident. Stanley v Powell (1891), where a pellet glanced off a tree and struck a beater, is the general authority for inevitable accident, and Assam State Cooperative Marketing Federation v Anubha Sinha (AIR 2001 Gau 18) is the Indian illustration.

The burden is on X to prove the sudden incapacity, and it is a heavy one. In Waugh v James K Allan Ltd (1964) the House of Lords accepted the defence where the driver suffered a fatal coronary thrombosis, but only on clear medical evidence.

B. If X knew, or ought to have known, that he was liable to lose consciousness, he is liable.

This is the decisive qualification and it is where most such cases are actually decided. The negligence then lies not in the moment of the blackout but in the decision to drive. A person who knows he suffers from epilepsy, who has been warned by his doctor not to drive, who has already felt faint that day, who is diabetic and has not eaten, or who has taken medication carrying a sedative warning, is negligent in taking the wheel at all.

This is the part of the answer most candidates miss, and in practice it is the most important.

Even if X escapes liability in tort, Y's dependants are not without a remedy. Under Section 140 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 the owner of the vehicle is liable to pay compensation on the principle of no fault liability, in the case of death a fixed sum, and Section 140(3) provides in terms that the claimant need not plead or establish any wrongful act, neglect or default on the part of the owner or driver, and that the claim shall not be defeated by reason of any such fault on the part of the person in respect of whom the claim is made. Section 163A provides for compensation on a structured formula basis on the same no fault principle.

The claim is made before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal under Sections 165 and 166, and the insurer is a necessary party, third party insurance being compulsory under Chapter XI. So the practical answer to the problem is that the dependants will recover from the insurer through the Tribunal, whatever the outcome of the negligence enquiry.

2. the accident is such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care; and
3. the cause of the accident is unknown, that is there is no evidence explaining how it happened.

C. Why it is a rule of evidence and not of law.

Three consequences follow, and stating them is the substance of the answer:

1. It does not shift the legal burden of proof. The legal burden of establishing negligence remains on the plaintiff throughout. What shifts is the evidential burden: the defendant must adduce an explanation consistent with the exercise of reasonable care, or lose on the inference. The Supreme Court has said so repeatedly, and it is the single point on which examiners test this maxim.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi v Subhagwanti (AIR 1966 SC 1750): the Clock Tower in Chandni Chowk, eighty years old and past the normal life of its mortar, collapsed and killed several people. The Supreme Court applied the maxim: the structure was in the Corporation's exclusive control, and such buildings do not fall if they are properly maintained and inspected.

Pushpabai Purshottam Udeshi v Ranjit Ginning and Pressing Co (1977) 2 SCC 745: a car left the road and struck a tree, killing a passenger. The Supreme Court held that the normal rule requiring the plaintiff to prove negligence is displaced where the circumstances themselves make out a case, and applied the maxim.

Shyam Sunder v State of Rajasthan (1974) 1 SCC 690: a truck of the State's famine relief department caught fire on its first trip after repairs, and a workman who jumped out was killed. The maxim was applied and the State held liable.

E. Where the maxim does not apply.

Easson v London and North Eastern Railway Co (1944): a child fell through the corridor door of a moving express train seven miles out of a station. The maxim was held not to apply, because the door was accessible to every passenger during the journey and so was not in the railway's exclusive control.

2. The facts on which the comment is based must be true, and must be stated or sufficiently indicated so that the reader can judge the comment for himself.
3. The comment must be on a matter of public interest.
4. The comment must be fair and honest, and not actuated by malice.

C. Applying them to A.

Requirement 1 defeats him. A has not said "B's handling of the fund has been careless", or "B's explanation of the accounts is unconvincing", which would be comments. He has said that B has misappropriated Rs. 2 lakh, which is an allegation that a specific event occurred. It is capable of being proved true or false by evidence, and that is the test which separates fact from comment. The distinction is settled: an assertion of fact must be justified as true; only an opinion can be defended as fair comment.

Requirement 2 also defeats him, for the same reason. Fair comment requires that the underlying facts be true; here the alleged fact is the defamatory statement, so there is no separate substratum of true facts on which any comment rests.

Qualified privilege may be available in a narrow form. A statement made in the discharge of a legal, moral or social duty to a person having a corresponding interest in receiving it is protected unless malice is shown. So a complaint made to B's superior officer, to the Comptroller and Auditor General or to an investigating agency would very likely be privileged. Publication to the world at large through a newspaper is a different matter, and the general rule is that the public does not have the requisite corresponding interest merely because the subject is interesting.

E. The Indian constitutional position, which is what a strong answer must reach.

F. Criminal defamation. B may also prosecute under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, where truth alone is not a defence: the First Exception requires the imputation to be true and its publication to be for the public good. The Ninth Exception protects an imputation made in good faith for the protection of the interests of the person making it or of any other person or for the public good. Section 500 prescribes the punishment, and Subramanian Swamy v Union of India (2016) 7 SCC 221 upheld the constitutional validity of criminal defamation.

3. the period is immaterial, and the tort is actionable per se; and
4. the plaintiff's knowledge of the restraint is not essential (Meering v Grahame-White Aviation Co, 1919; Murray v Ministry of Defence, 1988).

Malicious prosecution requires the plaintiff to prove five things:

1. that the defendant prosecuted him, that is set the criminal law in motion;
2. that the prosecution terminated in the plaintiff's favour;
3. that it was instituted without reasonable and probable cause;
4. that the defendant acted maliciously, with a motive other than a desire to bring an offender to justice; and
5. that the plaintiff suffered damage to his reputation, person or property (Savile v Roberts, 1698).

C. The distinctions.

D. The point of contact.

The two meet in the case of an arrest. If a police officer arrests without any lawful authority, that is false imprisonment, and the officer must justify. If he arrests under a valid warrant or a valid statutory power, the arrest is lawful and there is no false imprisonment, however malicious his motive; the person aggrieved must then attack the institution of the proceedings, which means suing in malicious prosecution once they have ended in his favour.

That is why an arrest under a magistrate's order cannot be false imprisonment: the restraint is imposed by the judicial act of the magistrate, not by the complainant, and the complainant's wrongdoing, if any, lies in setting the process in motion.

The Court awarded compensation, holding the practitioner liable both under the general law and before the consumer forum.

The same reasoning applies to X. He is an Ayurvedic practitioner, registered under the Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970 and the relevant State Act, and his registration authorises him to practise Ayurveda. Prescribing allopathic medicine is outside his registration. It is therefore:

1. negligence per se in tort, and X is liable in damages to the deceased's dependants;
2. an offence of quackery under the Medical Council legislation and the relevant State Medical Practitioners Act; and
3. potentially an offence under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code, causing death by a rash or negligent act, subject to the safeguards laid down in Jacob Mathew v State of Punjab (2005) 6 SCC 1, which require, for criminal liability of a doctor, negligence of a gross degree and, ordinarily, an independent medical opinion before an FIR is registered.

2. It is not a "contract of personal service", which is the phrase excluded by Section 2(1)(o). A contract of personal service imports a master and servant relationship, and a doctor treating a patient is engaged under a contract for services, in which the patient controls what is done but not how. Only where a doctor is employed as a servant of the patient is the exclusion attracted.
3. The presence or absence of a fee decides whether the patient is a consumer, and the Court laid down the categories:

• where the service is rendered free of charge to everybody, it is outside the Act and the patient is not a consumer;
• where the doctor or hospital charges a fee, the patient is a consumer and the service is within the Act;
• where a hospital charges some patients and treats others free, those treated free are also consumers, because they are beneficiaries of a service rendered on payment by others, and the service is not "free of charge" in the sense of the exclusion; and
• where the fee is paid by an insurer or by the employer under a service scheme, the patient is a consumer.

Hospitals are vicariously liable for the negligence of the doctors and staff they employ, and Achutrao Haribhau Khodwa v State of Maharashtra (1996) 2 SCC 634, where a mop was left in the patient's abdomen after a sterilisation operation and she died, is the standing Indian illustration of both vicarious liability and res ipsa loquitur in a hospital setting.

Under the 2019 Act the position is unchanged in substance and stronger in form. "Service" is defined in Section 2(42) with the same exclusions, and deficiency in Section 2(11) now expressly includes any act of negligence or omission or commission which causes loss or injury to the consumer. Chapter VI on product liability applies to a product service provider as well, and Section 85 sets out when a service provider is liable, including for negligence in rendering the service and for failure to issue adequate instructions or warnings.

1. The words as published. He must prove the actual words used, and, where they are not defamatory on their face, he must say so and rely on the secondary meaning.
2. The extrinsic facts. He must plead and prove the special facts or circumstances which give the words their defamatory meaning. These facts are outside the publication itself, and without them the words are innocent.
3. That the secondary meaning is defamatory. He must show that the meaning contended for tends to lower him in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or to make them shun or avoid him, or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule. The court decides whether the words are capable of bearing that meaning; it is then a question of fact whether they did.
4. Publication to persons who knew the extrinsic facts. This is the requirement that distinguishes innuendo from ordinary defamation, and it is the one most often overlooked. It is not enough that the facts existed; the plaintiff must show that the statement was published to at least one person who knew them and who would therefore understand the words in the defamatory sense.
5. That the words refer to the plaintiff, again as understood by such persons.

D. True and false innuendo.

Modern pleading distinguishes two things which the word "innuendo" is used for, and knowing the distinction is worth a mark:

• The true or legal innuendo is what has been described above: a meaning arising from extrinsic facts known to some readers. It must be specifically pleaded and proved.
• The false or popular innuendo is merely the inference which any ordinary reader would draw from the words themselves, without any special knowledge, for example the implication in "the police are anxious to interview Mr X". This requires no extrinsic fact and is part of the ordinary meaning of the words.

B. Pecuniary jurisdiction.

Under the 1986 Act, Section 11(1): complaints where the value of the goods or services and the compensation claimed does not exceed Rs. 20 lakh. The computation is on both together, not on either alone, and that is the point on which most objections turn.

Under the 2019 Act, Section 34(1): complaints where the value of the goods or services paid as consideration does not exceed the prescribed amount. As originally enacted the limit was Rs. 1 crore; by the notification of December 2021 it stands at Rs. 50 lakh. The important change is in the basis of computation: the 2019 Act looks only at the consideration paid, and not at the compensation claimed, which prevents a complainant from choosing his forum by inflating his claim.

C. Territorial jurisdiction.

Under the 1986 Act, Section 11(2), a complaint may be instituted in the District Forum within whose local limits:

1. the opposite party, or each of them where there are more than one, at the time of the institution of the complaint, actually and voluntarily resides, or carries on business, or has a branch office, or personally works for gain; or

3. the services hired or availed of, or agreed to be hired or availed of, suffer from any deficiency;
4. a trader or service provider has charged a price in excess of that fixed by law, displayed on the goods or their packing, or agreed between the parties;
5. goods or services which are hazardous to life and safety are being offered for sale in contravention of the provisions of any law requiring traders to display information; and

under the 2019 Act, additionally, (6) a product liability action by or on behalf of a complainant.

E. Who may complain. Under Section 2(1)(b) of the 1986 Act, a consumer; a registered voluntary consumer association; the Central or a State Government; one or more consumers where there are numerous consumers having the same interest, with the permission of the Forum under Section 12(1)(c); and, on the death of a consumer, his legal heir or representative. The 2019 Act adds a parent or legal guardian of a minor consumer and the Central Authority.

H. Reliefs. Section 14 of the 1986 Act, now Section 39 of the 2019 Act: removal of the defect; replacement with goods of similar description free from defect; return of the price; compensation for loss or injury, including punitive damages; removal of the deficiency in service; discontinuance of an unfair or restrictive trade practice and an order not to repeat it; withdrawal of hazardous goods from sale; corrective advertisement; and costs. The 2019 Act adds power to declare unfair contract terms void and to order cessation of misleading advertisements.

I. Appeal. Under Section 15 of the 1986 Act, to the State Commission within thirty days, on a deposit of fifty per cent of the amount ordered or Rs. 25,000, whichever is less. Under Section 41 of the 2019 Act, within forty-five days, on a deposit of fifty per cent of the amount ordered, with no monetary cap.

Ashby v White (1703) 2 Ld Raym 938. The defendant, a returning officer, wrongfully and maliciously refused to register the vote of the plaintiff, a qualified elector. The candidate the plaintiff wished to support was elected in any event, so the plaintiff suffered no loss at all. Holt CJ held the action lay: if the plaintiff has a right, he must of necessity have a means to vindicate it, and want of right and want of remedy are reciprocal.

Bhim Singh v State of Jammu and Kashmir (1985) 4 SCC 677. A member of the Legislative Assembly was wrongfully arrested and detained, deliberately to prevent him attending the session, and was not produced before a Magistrate within the required time. Although he had been released by the time of the decision, the Supreme Court awarded Rs. 50,000 as exemplary compensation.

Marzetti v Williams (1830): a banker holding sufficient funds of his customer refused to honour his cheque; liable, although no actual loss was shown.

B. Damnum sine injuria: actual loss without legal injury.

Actual and even substantial damage without the infringement of any legal right. It is not actionable, however heavy the loss, because there is no cause of action at all.