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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Defamation - From: 1980 To: 1984

This page lists 12 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.

 
Morosi v Broadcasting Station 2GB Pty Ltd [1980] 2 NSWLR 418
1980

Samuels JA
Commonwealth, Defamation
(Court of Appeal of New South Wales) A radio broadcast dwelled at some length upon rumours concerning Ms Morosi (describing her as "the most notorious women’s name in the country"), but then went on to say that there was no truth in any of these claims. Held: Applying the bane and antidote rule, the broadcast was defamatory. Samuels JA noted: "I do not doubt that there are occasions when a publication which seeks to refute a calumny which it expressly states may be held incapable of conveying any defamatory meaning. Bik v Mirror Newspaper Ltd is an example. But such cases must be comparatively rare . . in a case such as this the material already contains a defamatory imputation; and the inquiry is whether that effect is overcome by contextual matter of an emollient kind so as to eradicate the hurt and render the whole publication harmless."
1 Citers


 
Khashoggi v Smith Unreported, 15 Jan 1980
15 Jan 1980
CA
Sir David Cairns
Intellectual Property, Defamation
The plaintiff attempted to prevent a housekeeper from disclosing allegedly confidential information acquired during her employment. Held: Sir David Cairns said: "But when it is apprehended that what a former employee has disclosed, or is about to disclose, and what others to whom it has been disclosed are threatening to publish, consists in part of allegations of criminal conduct of a serious character, then in my judgment no action will lie on the basis that the employee learned of such conduct in confidence as distinct from an action for defamation on the basis that the allegations are untrue. It seems to me that there is a fundamental distinction between the two types of action, in that in the one case the plaintiff is saying 'Untrue and defamatory statements have been made about me,' and in the other case of the plaintiff is saying: 'Statements which are about to be published about events which have happened and have been disclosed as a result of breach of confidence.'
For this reason and also because it seems that a great part of the story in relation to alleged criminal conduct has already been made public at the trial at the Central Criminal Court, I consider that the plaintiff is not entitled to an injunction in respect of those matters."
1 Citers


 
Jackson v John Fairfax and Sons Ltd [1981] 1 NSWLR 36
1981

Hunt J
Commonwealth, Defamation
(New South Wales) Discussing the provisions of the NSW Defamation Act 1974 section 16, Hunt J said: "It is, in my view, basic to the scheme of section 16 that both of the imputations in question (that is, the imputation pleaded by the plaintiff and the contextual imputation pleaded by the defendant) must be conveyed by the matter complained of at the same time and that each must differ in substance from the other." As to an allegation suggesting suspicion of criminal conduct, he said: "An easy example is the publication which describes the plaintiff (falsely) with having been charged with a criminal offence and which, by reason of additional material, also imputes (truly) that he is guilty of such offence. If the plaintiff sued and complained only of the imputation conveyed by the assertion that he had been charged with that offence, it would be open to the defendant, in accordance with s 16, to plead the contextual imputation that the plaintiff was in fact guilty of such an offence and that such contextual imputation was substantially true . . [T]he defendant would succeed in the action complaining of the publication of the imputation pleaded by the plaintiff (and based upon the untrue assertion that he had been charged) if the jury were satisfied that, by reason of the substantial truth of the defendant’s contextual imputation, the untrue imputation pleaded by the plaintiff did not further injure his reputation.
In coming to that decision, the jury would be required to weigh or to measure the relative worth or value of the several imputations pleaded by both the plaintiff and the defendant. There is little doubt that in this example the jury would find that, by reason of the substantial truth of the contextual imputation pleaded by the defendant, that pleaded by the plaintiff did not further injure his reputation.
At the other end of the scale is the publication which describes the plaintiff (falsely) as a blackmailer and (truly) as having unlawfully remained in the country on an expired visa. If the plaintiff sued and complained only of the assertion that he was a blackmailer, a defence of contextual truth based upon the imputation that the plaintiff was an illegal immigrant would be doomed to failure. It would, in my view, be open to the trial judge in such circumstances to take such a defence away from the jury because there would be no rational basis upon which the jury could find in favour of the defendant.
In between these two extremes there must, of course, be many degrees. If the publication described the plaintiff (falsely) as a share swindler and (truly) as a rapist, the jury could well have considerable difficulty in weighing or measuring the relative worth or value of the two imputations conveyed. In those circumstances, it seems that the trial judge would be obliged to leave the issue to the jury."
1 Citers


 
Hayward v Thompson [1982] 1 QB 47; [1981] 3 All ER 45
1981
CA
Sir George Baker, Lord Denning MR, Sir Stanley Rees
Defamation, Litigation Practice
A later publication by the same defendant can be used to identify the plaintiff in an earlier publication. If the defendant did intend to refer to the plaintiff, it may be enough if the recipient understood it as referring to the plaintiff regardless of how unreasonable or extraordinary it may have been for the recipient to do so.
Lord Denning MR said: "whether one or more causes of action are to be included in one verdict or judgment will depend upon the exercise of the trial Judge’s judicial discretion." It is the practice of the English courts in defamation actions to favour a single award of damages, even where there is more than one cause of action.
The court should in interpreting a passage, look to the meaning which the ordinary and reasonable reader would give it on a first reading.
Lord Denning considered the use of evidence as to the meaning: "Many read the article. In England Sir Peter Scott did so. He said that the words "One is a wealthy benefactor of the Liberal party" conveyed to him Mr. Jack Hayward. They did likewise to a Mrs. Cowper who gave evidence. In the Bahamas Mr. Hayward's daughter and son-in-law read it and thought it referred to him. But the most telling evidence came from Mr. Hayward himself. He said that in the Bahamas, after the article, the telephone never stopped ringing, day or night, either at home or at the office. He set it out in a contemporary letter from the Bahamas: "The telephone has hardly stopped ringing since I returned and reporters from virtually every newspaper have been on the line." The most striking incident was that: . . "
Sir George Baker said: "There are few civil actions in which nothing new emerges in the course of the hearing."
Sir Stanley Rees answered an argument that it was not open in law in any circumstances to rely upon a subsequent publication in order to provide evidence of a defamatory meaning or of identification in an earlier article. Counsel referred the court hearing that argument to a number of authorities, in which an original publication was of innocent material which only became defamatory upon the publication of subsequent material, submitting that the principle derived from the cited cases was that a writer of innocent matter could not, by reason of facts which came into existence subsequent to the original innocent publication, become liable in damages for libel because the subsequent material attributed a defamatory meaning to the innocent publication, saying: "The question we have to consider is whether that well-established principle applies to a case such as the instant one when (1) the original publication is defamatory; (2) when the second publication relied upon explicitly identifies the person defamed; and (3) it is published by the same party who published the original libel."
The learned judge held that it was open to find that, as from the second publication, the plaintiff had been publicly named as the person referred to in the first article, which was defamatory.
1 Citers



 
 Buttes Gas and Oil Co v Hammer (No 3); HL 1981 - [1982] AC 888; [1981] 3 All ER 616; [1981] 3 WLR 787
 
Grappelli v Derek Block (Holdings) Ltd [1981] 2 All ER 272; [1981] 1 WLR 822
20 Jan 1981
CA
Denning MR, Templeman and Dunn LJJ
Defamation
Stephane Grappelli, an renowned musician, employed the defendants to promote him. They purported to arrange various concerts, but did so without his authority. When they were cancelled, they told the venue owners that they were cancelled because the plaintiff was "very seriously ill in Paris" and that it would be surprising "if he ever toured again". About five months later the defendants by advertisement and a press release announced a number of concerts to be given by the plaintiff at different places on dates which included some of the dates on which the first concerts were to have taken place. The plaintiff claimed damages for injurious falsehood, and for libel alleging that the facts gave rise to an innuendo that the plaintiff had given a false reason for cancelling the concert which he knew to be false. The defendant sought to strike out the allegation of libel and slander because the pleadings did not identify any members of the public who were alleged to acknowledge of the intrinsic facts supporting the innuendo. The defendant appealed against rejection of this argument. Held: The appeal succeeded. A claimant cannot rely on events subsequent to publication to establish that the words referred, or would have been understood to refer to him.
Lord Denning MR said: "Upon this point we heard interesting discussion on both sides. I would go by the principle, which is well-established, that in defamation - be it libel or slander - the cause of action is the publication of defamatory words of and concerning the plaintiff. The cause of action arises when those words are published to the person by whom they are read or heard. The cause of action arises then: and not later."
C-D Dunn LJ said: "Like Lord Denning MR, I would prefer to deal with this on principle. I agree that a publication is an essential part of the cause of action; that once there is publication the cause of action is complete, and there is no room for the doctrine that the cause of action can, so to speak, be allowed to be inchoate or lie dormant until such time as some fact emerges which would transform an otherwise innocent statement into a defamatory one . . ."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Herbage v Times Newspapers Ltd Times, 30 April 1981
30 Apr 1981
CA
Lord Denning MR, Sir Denys Buckley
Defamation
The principles in American Cyanamid did not affect the rule in Bonnard v Perryman. Sir Denys Buckley saiod: "the question what meaning the words complained of bore was primarily one for the jury. Suppose the words bore the second meaning alleged and an injunction were granted restraining further publication, if application were made to commit the defendants for contempt of court for breach of that injunction, the judge hearing the application would have to form a view as to whether there had been a breach of the injunction and decide whether the words used implied that Mr Herbage had been made bankrupt and discharged without paying his debts in full. It could not be right in a defamation action to grant an action of that kind. There were special circumstances in defamation actions."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
X Ltd and Y Ltd v United Kingdom (1982) 28 DR 77
1982
ECHR

Human Rights, Defamation
The Commission considered the common law offence of blasphemous libel as an offence defined under common law rather than statute law. Held: "The Commission considers that the same principles also apply to the interpretation and application of the common law. Whilst this branch of the law presents certain particularities for the very reason that it is by definition law developed by the courts, it is nevertheless subject to the rule that the law making function of the courts must remain within reasonable limits. In particular in the area of the criminal law it is excluded, by virtue of Article 7(1) of the Convention, that any acts not previously punishable should be held by the courts to entail criminal liability, or that existing offences should be extended to cover facts which previously clearly did not constitute a criminal offence. This implies that constituent elements of an offence such as e.g. the particular form of culpability required for its completion may not be essentially changed, at least not to the detriment of the accused, by the case law of the courts. On the other hand it is not objectionable that the existing elements of the offence are clarified and adapted to new circumstances which can reasonably be brought under the original concept of the offence."
1 Citers


 
Schild v Express Newspapers Times, 05 October 1982
5 Oct 1982
CA

Defamation



 
 Muirhead v George Outram and Company Limited; 1983 - 1983 SLT 201
 
Herbage v Pressdram Ltd [1984] 1 WLR 1160
1984
CA
Griffiths LJ
Defamation
The court restated the principle in Bonnard -v- Perryman, "These principles have evolved because of the value the court has placed on freedom of speech and I think also on the freedom of the press, when balancing it against the reputation of a single individual who, if wrong, can be compensated in damages." It was argued that the principles from American Cyanamid should be used to extend the Bonnard rule: "If the court were to accept this argument, the practical effect would I believe be that in very many cases the plaintiff would obtain an injunction, for on the American Cyanamid principles he would often show a serious issue to be tried, that damages would not be realistic compensation, and that the balance of convenience favoured restraining repetition of the alleged libel until trial of the action. It would thus be a very considerable incursion into the present rule which is based on freedom of speech."
The term 'malice' means an irrelevant, spiteful, or improper motive
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Blackshaw v Lord [1984] 1 QB 42; [1983] 2 All ER 311; [1983] 3 WLR 283
1984
CA
Dunn LJ, Stephenson LJ, Fox LJ
Defamation
The Daily Telegraph carried an article headed "Incompetence at ministry cost £52 million" recording that a number of senior civil servants had been reprimanded after investigation by the Public Accounts Committee. The plaintiff had been in charge at the material time. It also stated that the plaintiff had resigned from the civil service. The article followed a press conference at which some of the evidence had been disclosed, and at which it was revealed that an unnamed senior department official in Scotland had been reprimanded. The name of the official concerned was said to have been subsequently divulged to the journalist (Mr Lord) by one of the department's press officers (Mr Smith) on request. The defendant made a claim to a generic protection for a widely stated category of information, namely: 'fair information on a matter of public interest'. Held: A claim to privilege must be precisely focused. A publication must be in the public interest. Whether a publication is in the public interest or, in the conventional phraseology, whether there is a duty to publish to the intended recipients, the readers of the newspaper, depends upon the circumstances, including the nature of the matter published and its source or status. "There must be a duty to publish to the public at large and an interest in the public at large to receive the publication, and a section of the public is not enough."
Stephenson LJ: "Where damaging facts have been ascertained to be true or being made the subject of report, there may be a duty to report them . . . provided the public interest is wide enough . . . But where damaging allegations or charges have been made and are still under investigation . . . or have been authoritatively refuted . . . there can be no duty to report them to the public."
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