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.’
Judges:
Sir David Cairns
Citations:
Unreported, 15 Jan 1980
Cited by:
Cited – Hannon and Another v News Group Newspapers Ltd and Another ChD 16-May-2014
The claimants alleged infringement of their privacy, saying that the defendant newspaper had purchased private information from police officers emplyed by the second defendant, and published them. The defendants now applied for the claims to be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Intellectual Property, Defamation
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.525970