A notice had been displayed on a golf club notice board. The court considered whether this constituted publication for defamation purposes.
Held: Greene LJ said: ‘Now on the substantial question of publication, publication, of course, is a question of fact, and it must depend on the circumstances in each case whether or not publication has taken place. It is said that as a general proposition where the act of the person alleged to have published a libel has not been any positive act, but has merely been the refraining from doing some act, he cannot be guilty of publication. I am quite unable to accept any such general proposition. It may very well be that in some circumstances a person, by refraining from removing or obliterating the defamatory matter, is not committing any publication at all. In other circumstances he may be doing so. The test it appears to me is this: having regard to all the facts of the case is the proper inference that by not removing the defamatory matter the defendant really made himself responsible for its continued presence in the place where it had been put?’
It was not defamatory to allege, in the form of a short rhyme posted in the location of the removed machine, that a member of a club had given information to the police about illegal gaming machines in the club. The argument of the Plaintiff before the Court of Appeal was that ‘the sting of the libel . . is that the plaintiff has been disloyal to the fellow members of his club.’
Slesser LJ said: ‘Now, in my view, to say or to allege of a man – and for this purpose, as my Lord has said, it does not matter whether the allegation is true or is not true – that he has reported certain acts, wrongful in law, to the police, cannot possibly be said to be defamatory of him in the minds of the general public.
We have to consider in this connection the arbitrium boni, the view which would be taken by the ordinary good and worthy subject of the King, and I have assigned to myself no other criterion than what a good and worthy subject of the King would think of some person of whom it had been said that he had put the law into motion against wrongdoers, in considering that such a good and worthy subject would not consider such an allegation in itself to be defamatory.’
Greene LJ refined the meaning of the rhyme to be ‘that he was guilty of disloyalty by reporting the matter to the police’. He noted that it could not be considered defamatory to say that he had reported the matter to the police and continued ‘if the allegation that he reported the matter to the police is not defamatory, in my judgment the allegation that in reporting the matter to the police he was guilty of disloyalty cannot be defamatory’. Greene LJ rejected the notion that there could be degrees of criminal behaviour, and that illegal gaming machines should be considered less worthy of official report.
Greer LJ dissented, considering that the statement in the document was ‘that the Plaintiff who gave the game away was guilty of disloyalty to his fellow members of the Club’.
Greene LJ, Slesser LJ, Greer LJ
[1937] 1 KB 818
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Godfrey v Demon Internet Limited QBD 26-Mar-1999
An Internet Service Provider who was re-distributing Usenet postings it had received, to its users in general, remained a publisher at common law, even though he was not such within the definitions of the Act, and it was therefore liable in . .
Cited – Bunt v Tilley and others QBD 10-Mar-2006
bunt_tilleyQBD2006
The claimant sought damages in defamation in respect of statements made on internet bulletin boards. He pursued the operators of the bulletin boards, and the court now considered the liability of the Internet Service Providers whose systems had . .
Cited – Bunt v Tilley and others QBD 10-Mar-2006
bunt_tilleyQBD2006
The claimant sought damages in defamation in respect of statements made on internet bulletin boards. He pursued the operators of the bulletin boards, and the court now considered the liability of the Internet Service Providers whose systems had . .
Cited – Kaschke v Gray and Another QBD 23-Jul-2010
The claimant sought damages in defamation saying that the defendants had published a web page which falsely associated her with a terrorist gang in the 1970s. The defendants now sought a strike out of her claim as an abuse saying that a similar . .
Cited – Makudi v Baron Triesman of Tottenham In London Borough of Haringey QBD 1-Feb-2013
makudi_triesmanQBD2013
The claimant, former chairman of the Thailand Football Association, claimed in defamation against the defendant who had been chairman of the English Football Association. The defendant asked the court to strike out the claim, saying that some of the . .
Binding – Rufus v Elliott QBD 1-Nov-2013
rufus_elliottQBD2013
The parties were former footballers involved in charitable works. The claimant said that an allegation by the defendant that he the claimant had released for publication a text message in which the the defendant was said to have used extremely . .
Followed – Williams v MGN Ltd QBD 2-Dec-2009
The claimant, who had been convicted of murder, complained that an article defamed him by calling him a ‘grass’ or police informer. The defendant asked that the claimant’s defamation action be struck out as an abuse.
Held: While the suggestion . .
Cited – Elliott v Rufus CA 20-Feb-2015
The parties were former footballers and business partners they fell out and the defendant was said to have sent and extremely offensive text message. After a copy was published, the defendant published a press release which the claimant now said was . .
Cited – Weller and Others v Associated Newspapers Ltd CA 20-Nov-2015
The three children of a musician complained of the publication of photographs taken of them in a public place in California. . .
Cited – Tamiz v Google Inc CA 14-Feb-2013
The respondent hosted a blogs platform. One of its user’s blogs was said by the appellant to have been defamatory. On discovery the material had been removed quickly. The claimant now appealed against his claim being struck out. He argued as to: (1) . .
Cited – Makudi v Baron Triesman of Tottenham CA 26-Feb-2014
Appeal against strike out of claims for defamation and malicious falsehood. The defendant had given evidence to the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee of the House of Commons with material highly critical of the claimant, a member of FIFA’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.194308