(Trinidad and Tobago) The Board was asked as to the well-known conundrum in the common law of defamation, namely the extent to which (if at all) two or more different statements made upon different occasions by the same defendant may be aggregated for the purpose of giving rise to a cause of action in defamation, when none of those statements would do so, viewed on its own.
Held: There is no satisfactory resolution of the conundrum, but in this case the appeal could be satisfactorily resolved without doing so – this appeal should be allowed, because the judge was not plainly wrong in his answer to the question whether the two groups of articles could be aggregated.
Judges:
Lord Wilson, Lord Carnwath, Lady Black, Lord Briggs, Lady Arden
Citations:
[2019] UKPC 38, [2019] 3 WLR 537, [2019] EMLR 26, [2020] AC 650
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Ratcliffe v Evans CA 28-May-1892
The plaintiff was an engineer and boiler-maker. He alleged that a statement in the local newspaper that he had ceased business had caused him loss. The evidence that was given at trial consisted of general evidence of a downturn in trade; but the . .
Cited – Grappelli v Derek Block (Holdings) Ltd CA 20-Jan-1981
Stephane Grappelli, an renowned musician, employed the defendants to promote him. They purported to arrange various concerts, but did so without his authority. When they were cancelled, they told the venue owners that they were cancelled because the . .
Cited – Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd and Another SC 12-Jun-2019
Need to Show Damage Increased by 2013 Act
The claimant alleged defamation by three publishers. The articles were held to have defamatory meaning, but the papers argued that the defamations did not reach the threshold of seriousness in section 1(1) of the 2013 Act.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Hayward v Thompson CA 1981
A later publication by the same defendant can be used to identify the plaintiff in an earlier publication. If the defendant did intend to refer to the plaintiff, it may be enough if the recipient understood it as referring to the plaintiff . .
Cited – Jones v E Hulton and Co CA 26-May-1909
The defendants, who were the proprietors and publishers of a newspaper, published in an article in their paper defamatory statements of a named person believed by the writer of the article and by the defendants to be a fictitious personage with an . .
Cited – Bradley and another v Independent Star Newspapers 1-Jun-2011
(Supreme Court of Ireland) A claimant can give evidence about persons who made contact with him and by their conduct or statements had indicated they had identified him as the subject of the libel, or evidence that he had been the subject of . .
Cited – Baltinos v Foreign Language Publications Pty Ltd 1896
(New South Wales) An article in a Greek language newspaper alleged that a group of people had exploited people seeking permanent residence in Australia. No offender was named, but the article recommended readers watch an episode of an upcoming . .
Cited – Jones v Jones HL 1916
The House described the different origins of libel and slander. Libel was regarded by the Court of Star Chamber not merely as a crime punishable as such, but also as a wrong carrying the penalty of general damages, and this remedy was carried . .
Cited – Sim v Stretch HL 1936
Test For Defamatory Meaning
The plaintiff complained that the defendant had written in a telegram to accuse him of enticing away a servant. The House considered the process of deciding whether words were defamatory.
Held: The telegram was incapable of bearing a . .
Cited – Stocker v Stocker SC 3-Apr-2019
The parties had been married and divorced. Mrs S told M S’s new partner on Facebook that he had tried to strangle her and made other allegations. Mrs S now appealed from a finding that she had defamed him. Lord Kerr restated the approach to meaning . .
Cited – Cassell and Co Ltd v Broome and Another HL 23-Feb-1972
Exemplary Damages Award in Defamation
The plaintiff had been awarded damages for defamation. The defendants pleaded justification. Before the trial the plaintiff gave notice that he wanted additional, exemplary, damages. The trial judge said that such a claim had to have been pleaded. . .
Cited – McGraddie v McGraddie and Another (Scotland) SC 31-Jul-2013
The parties were father and son, living at first in the US. On the son’s wife becoming seriously ill, the son returned to Scotland. The father advanced a substantal sum for the purchase of a property to live in, but the son put the properties in his . .
Cited – Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Pedavoli 20-Aug-2015
(Supreme Court of New South Wales – Court of Appeal) There was a salacious article about a teacher. By reason of the inclusion of incorrect information, the article wrongly pointed to the plaintiff as the teacher in question. The principle upheld by . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Updated: 24 April 2022; Ref: scu.645931