Hand, J., in Slater Trust Company v. Gardiner (1910) 183 Federal Reporter, 268, 270–271

At the outset the character of the mistake must be observed. Gardiner knew the facts, but he did not know the meaning of the words. Although the great weight of authority is to the contrary (Derry v. Peek, 14 App. Cas. 337), I may assume for the purposes of this case that a man may be responsible for his uttered false words, even when he believes them to be true.

Such authorities as hold to this rule regard the uttered word as the cause of the damage, which, of course, it is, and they hold that a man, by speaking or writing words on which he knows others will rely, must be held to their truth quite as much as though he made a promise (Mr. Justice Holmes, dissentiente, Nash v. Minnesota Title Co., 163 Mass. 574, 40 N. E. 1039, 28 L. R. A. 753, 47 Am. St. Rep. 489; Pollock on Torts, [6th Ed.] page 283). But these authorities, which regard the word as the tortious act, certainly should not, in analogy with the other law of torts, be supposed to mean that a man should be responsible for the remote results of his words. The extent of his responsibility, indeed, ought to be limited, as it is in other torts, to those matters which would come within the foresight of the hypothetical reasonable man. With remoter damage it is as unjust to charge the words of his mouth as the movements of his legs or arms. Although they do not in these words indicate the distinction, I think that this is the explanation of such of the cases as make negligence the test, and of these there are a number.

If Gardiner was responsible for the words he uttered, regardless of scienter, at least he was not responsible for such consequences as no man could avoid with the use of reasonable care. What happened in spite of the exercise of such care was remote, within all the analogies of the law of torts. “Causa proxima non remota spectatur.” Nor does it make any difference that it was in respect of the meaning of his words that he was mistaken. The utterance of a word is one thing; its eventual interpretation by a reader is another, and is as much the external consequence of its utterance as anything else. A given interpretation, even a legal one, may be, from the point of view of the original utterer, so remote a consequence that no one ought in justice to be held accountable for it. For example, in the case at bar, if Gardiner did all a layman could do to get the facts set down correctly, the interpretation that J. T. Woodward put on the words Gardiner was not bound to anticipate, not even if it was the right one.

The authorities do not make any distinction between the discrepancy of the statement with the facts stated and the discrepancy of the statement with its subsequent interpretation. Thus in Derry v. Peek, 14 App. Cas. 337, it appeared that the directors who issued the prospectus knew all the facts and trusted their solicitors to prepare the statement correctly (see Lord Bramwell’s judgment, page 348); their misstatement was in calling the franchise absolute which was in fact conditional. This statement they successfully justified, because they regarded the condition attached to the franchise as practically certain of fulfilment and the statement really truthful (Lord Herschell’s Judgment, pages 378, 379). The point is that the error was in supposing that the facts which they knew were correctly set forth in the statement. A similar case, where the exact point was passed on by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, is Nash v. Minnesota Title Co., 163 Mass. 574, 40 N. E. 1039, 28 L. R. A. 753, 47 Am. St. Rep. 489, the dissent in which I have already mentioned. But that dissent proceeds upon the theory that no scienter is ever necessary in an action for deceit.