The plaintiff had contracted exclusively to supply to the defendants owners of petrol stations. On arrears arising, the plaintiff discontinued deliveries save on cash on delivery and direct debit terms. The defendants obtained supplies from another source and the plaintiff terminated the agreement. There then followed proceedings which the defendants lost in court and which were the subject of an appeal. While the appeal was pending the defendant circulated leaflets to several of the plaintiff’s customers, giving an account of the litigation and judgment. Also, when the plaintiff was entertaining customers at a hospitality tent at the Cheltenham Gold Cup race meeting, the defendant flew a light aircraft over the racecourse, displaying a banner with the words ‘Gulf Exposed in Fundamental Breach’.
Held: The court granted an injunction in conspiracy which enabled the plaintiff to circumvent the rule in Bonnard v Perryman, but Parker LJ said that the court ‘would require to be satisfied that [a claim in conspiracy] was not merely an attempt to circumvent the rule in defamation’.
‘It is true that there is no wrong done if what is published is true provided it is not published in pursuance of a combination and, even if it is, there is still no wrong unless the sole or dominant purpose of the combination in publication is to injure the plaintiff. If, however, there is both combination and purpose or dominant purpose to injure, there is a wrong done. When a plaintiff sues in conspiracy, there is therefore, a potential wrong, even if it is admitted as it is in the present case, that the publication is true and thus that there is no question of a course of action in defamation. In such a case the court can, and should not proceed on the same principle as it would in the case of any other tort.
The prospect that this would open the floodgates and reverse the principle applicable in libel actions is, in my view unreal, a plaintiff against the author and publisher of a newspaper article, for example, might well establish a combination, but it appears to me that it would only be in the rarest case that sufficient evidence of a dominant purpose to injure could be made out to warrant the ground of interlocutory relief, and I have no doubt that the court would scrutinise with the greatest care any case where a course of action in conspiracy was joined to a course of action in defamation and would require to be satisfied that such joinder was not merely an attempt to circumvent the rule in defamation’.
Judges:
Parker LJ, Nicholas Browne-Wilkinson V-C
Citations:
[1987] 1 Ch 327
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Bonnard v Perryman CA 2-Jan-1891
Although the courts possessed a jurisdiction, ‘in all but exceptional cases’, they should not issue an interlocutory injunction to restrain the publication of a libel which the defence sought to justify except where it was clear that that defence . .
Cited by:
Cited – Service Corporation International plc v Channel Four Television ChD 1999
The court considered an application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain a broadcast, based on copyright. The defendant argued that this was merely an attempt to circumvent difficulties in a defamation action.
Held: Where an interim . .
Cited – RST v UVW QBD 11-Sep-2009
The applicant sought an interim and without notice injunction preventing the defendant from disclosing confidential information covered by an agreement between the parties.
Held: The order was made on a without notice application because there . .
Cited – Caborn-Waterfield v Gold and Others QBD 11-Mar-2013
The defendants requested a preliminary ruling that the words complained of in the claimant’s action were not capable of bearing a defamatory meaning.
Held: Some of the pleaded meanings were not supported, but others were clearly defamatory, . .
Cited – Femis Bank v Lazard 1991
Nicholas Browne-Wilkinson V-C said: ‘However, in this case the plaintiffs rely on the decision . . in Gulf Oil (Great Britain) Ltd v. Page . . which shows that, where the cause of action is founded on conspiracy to injure, the court can grant an . .
Cited – NT 1 and NT 2 v Google Llc QBD 13-Apr-2018
Right to be Forgotten is not absolute
The two claimants separately had criminal convictions from years before. They objected to the defendant indexing third party web pages which included personal data in the form of information about those convictions, which were now spent. The claims . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other, Litigation Practice
Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.253525