Abstract:
The decision of the US Supreme Court in International News Service v Associated Press (1918) has variously been interpreted as recognising a ‘quasi-property’ right in ‘valuable intangibles’, such as hot news; as turning on unjust enrichment; or as creating a novel tort of unfair competition by misappropriation. It is suggested that the case is more authentically understood as an incidental result of a process by which the Supreme Court extended the boundaries of tort liability, and the corresponding scope of property protection, in a series of decisions against organised labour. The argument is pursued with reference to the prima facie tort theory of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American ‘labour injunction’, and the labour law record of the author of the majority opinion in International News, Justice Mahlon Pitney.
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Christopher Wadlow, A Riddle Whose Answer is ‘Tort’: A Reassessment of International News Service v Associated Press. The Modern Law Review, Volume 76, Issue 4, pages 649–680, July 2013. Article first published online: 1 JUL 2013. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2230.12029.
First posted 2013-07-02 06:45:52
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