Appeal against an order giving judgment for the respondent, Mr Miller, against the appellant, Associated Newspapers Ltd, the publishers of the Daily Mail, in an action for libel.
Moore-Bick LJ (giving the judgment of the Court) summarised the task of the trial judge when assessing a defence of truth to a Chase level 2 allegation: ‘It follows from . . the fact that the existence of grounds for suspicion is to be judged objectively, that the question for the court when considering a defence of justification is whether, viewed at the date of publication, the claimant had behaved in a way that would give a reasonable person grounds for suspecting him of the wrongdoing in question. That much was not in dispute. Nor, subject to one point, was it in dispute that the reasonable person is to be taken to be aware of all the primary facts and matters subsisting at the date of publication: see King, principles (8) and (9). The allegation that the claimant has behaved in such a way as to bring suspicion on himself necessarily assumes the response of a reasonable person to observable primary facts. A person’s conduct can be observed and assessed, but his state of mind cannot, except by inference from other, primary, facts . .’ And: ‘It is necessary to remember that a Chase Level 2 imputation involves an allegation that the claimant has by his conduct brought suspicion upon himself. That is a matter to be judged objectively by reference to the facts, taken as a whole, as they were at the time of publication and as they would be viewed by an ordinary reasonable person.’
Explaining the importance that it was an assessment of the totality of the evidence, Moore-Bick LJ added: ‘. . in seeking to justify a Chase Level 2 imputation, both parties are entitled to rely on facts as they were at the date of publication, whether they knew them or not . .’
Judges:
Lord Justice Moore-Bick
Citations:
[2014] EWCA Civ 39
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Turley v Unite The Union and Another QBD 19-Dec-2019
Defamation of Labour MP by Unite and Blogger
The claimant now a former MP had alleged that a posting on a website supported by the first defendant was false and defamatory. The posting suggested that the claimant had acted dishonestly in applying online for a category of membership of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Updated: 25 September 2022; Ref: scu.520738