Scandal - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition scandal

Definition :

Scandal, a report or rumour, or an action whereby one is affronted in public.

Disgraceful, shameful, or degrading acts or conducts, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1345.

Scandal, in pleadings, is injurious, by making the records of the court the means of perpetuating libellous and malignant slanders; and the Court, in aid of the public morals, is bound to interfere to suppress such indecencies.

It is provided by (English) R.S.C. 1883, Ord. XIX., r. 27, that scandalous matter may be ordered to be struck out from any pleading, and by Ord. XXXVIII., r. 11, from affidavits.

Scandal, consists in the allegation of anything which is unbecoming the dignity of the court to hear, or is contrary to decency or good manners, or which charges some person with a crime not necessary to be shown in the cause, to which may be added that any unnecessary allegation, bearing cruelly upon the moral character of an individual, is also scandalous. The matter alleged must not be only offensive, but also irrelevant to the cause, for however, offensive it be, if it be pertinent and material to the cause the party has a right to plead it. It may often be necessary to charge false representations fraud and immorality, and the pleadings will not be open to the objection of scandal, if the facts justify the charge, Manual of Equity Pleading and Practice, Eugene A. Jones, 1916, p. 50.