Abbey v Gilligan and Others: QBD 20 Nov 2012

Claim for damages for breach of confidence, or misuse of private information, in relation to the obtaining and publication by the Defendants of a number of E-mails.
Held: The claim was dismissed: ‘Mr Abbey could not have any claim for breach of confidence in respect of information relating to his principal, or none that could give rise to any remedy of value to him. There is no case that the Defendants misused any information in respect of which he had reasonable expectation of privacy. If it be necessary to decide the point, I would decide that the publication complained of was in the public interest. And I find that the claim is an abuse of the process of the court.’
However, in an appropriate case the court could hold that the manner in which a person expressed themselves could give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Judges:

Mr Justice Tugendhat

Citations:

[2012] EWHC 3217 (QB)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedZXC v Bloomberg Lp CA 15-May-2020
Privacy Expecation during police investigations
Appeal from a judgment finding that the Defendant had breached the Claimant’s privacy rights. He made an award of damages for the infraction of those rights and granted an injunction restraining Bloomberg from publishing information which further . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Information, Media

Updated: 23 November 2022; Ref: scu.465897