Definition of Communication

Information given; the sharing of knowledge by one with 4n-other; conference; consultation or bargaining preparatory to making a contract. Also intercourse; connection. In French law. The production of a merchant's books, by delivering them either to a person designated by the court, or to his adversary, to be examined in all their parts, and as shall be deemed necessary to the suit. Arg. Fr. Merc. Law, 552.
—Confidential communications. These are certain classes of communications, passing between persons who stand in a confidential or fiduciary relation to each other, (or who, on account of their relative situation, are under a special duty of secrecy and fidelity,) which the law will not permit to be divulged, or allow them to be inquired into in a court of justice, for the sake of public policy and the good order of society. Examples of such privileged relations are those of husband and wife and attorney and client. Hatton v. Robinson, 14 Pick. (Mass.) 416, 25 Am. Dec. 415; Parker v. Carter, 4 Munf. (Va.) 287, 6 Am. Dec. 513; Chirac v. Reinickee, 11 Wheat 280, 6 L. Ed. 474; Parkhurst v. Berdell, 110 N. Y. 386, 18 N. E. 123, 6 AmStRep384,
—Privileged eommnnication. In the law of evidence. A communication made to a counsel, solicitor, or attorney, in professional confidence, and which he is not permitted to divulge ; otherwise called a "confidential communication." 1 Starkie, Ev. 185. In the law of libel and slander. A defamatory statement made to another in pursuance of a duty, political, judicial, social, or personal, so that an action for libel or slander will not lie, though the statement be false, unless in the last two cases actual malice be proved in addition. Bacon v. Railroad Co., 66 Mich. 166, 33 N. W. 181.