## Facts

- Monsley wrote and published a short verse addressed to “Old Villers,” accusing him of smelling strongly “of brimstone,” likening him to having “got out of hell,” calling him “old stinking” and “old nasty,” and referring to him as “old itchy.”
- The pleaded meaning was that the writing imputed to Villers both an offensive smell and a diseased condition (“the itch”), implying he was unfit to be around others.
- Villers sued in an action on the case for libel and alleged the publication was malicious.
- At assizes in Warwickshire, a jury found for Villers and awarded sixpence in damages.
- After the verdict, Monsley moved in arrest of judgment, arguing the writing was not actionable because “the itch” was not a crime, carried no moral disgrace, and could be innocently contracted.

## Issues

1. Whether a malicious written publication imputing that a person “stinks of brimstone” and “has the itch” constitutes civilly actionable libel.
2. Whether words that might be non-actionable if merely spoken may become actionable when written and published as a libel.
3. Whether the tendency of the publication to expose the plaintiff to ridicule or to have others avoid social intercourse is sufficient to support liability.

## Decision

- The Court of King’s Bench denied the motion in arrest of judgment and allowed the verdict to stand.
- The court held the publication was actionable libel because it would make others unwilling to eat, drink, or associate with the plaintiff.
- Judgment was entered for Villers on the jury’s verdict, leaving the nominal damages award intact.
- The court treated the writing as comparable in principle to imputations of contagious diseases (e.g., leprosy or plague) because such imputations tend to cut a person off from society.

## Legal Principles

- A malicious or deliberate written publication about another is actionable as libel if it renders the person ridiculous or tends to hinder others from associating or having intercourse with him.
- The law draws a sharper line for written defamation than for spoken words: statements that may not support an action as spoken slander can be actionable when written and published as libel.
- Imputations of disease or conditions that would cause others to shun the person are actionable in writing because the defamatory harm lies in likely social exclusion, not in whether the condition is criminal or morally blameworthy.
- For libel, the actionable character may rest on the natural tendency of the writing to subject the plaintiff to avoidance and loss of ordinary social dealings, even where the damages found are nominal.

## Conclusion

The court held that a malicious written verse accusing a person of foul odor and “the itch” was actionable libel because it would foreseeably cause others to avoid social contact with the plaintiff, and it reaffirmed that written defamation can be actionable even when the same words, if merely spoken, might not be.


Villers v. Monsley, 95 Eng. Rep. 886 (K.B. 1769)