An injunction was granted to restrain the Defendant from continuing to publish words as he had threatened to do so, had not indicated that he had any defence and the Claimant was likely to establish at trial that the publication should not be allowed.
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The Court assessed the appropriate sum in damages for libellous postings on internet forums, which stated that the claimant's distance learning courses were a ‘scam’, at £50,000, which was the sum necessary to demonstrate the falsity of the allegations.
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Even if a reader was taken to have read the contents of web pages that could be accessed by clicking on hyperlinks in the words complained of, the words complained of were capable of referring to the Claimant. An application by the Defendants to have the claim struck out on the basis that it did not so refer was therefore dismissed.
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A claim for libel in respect of a letter which it was admitted had been published on an occasion of qualified privilege was struck out as there was no realistic prospect of establishing malice and defeating the defence.
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The Court of Appeal upheld Tugendhat J’s ruling, pursuant to s.69 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, that a libel trial should take place without a jury. The Court reaffirmed the constitutional importance of the right to trial by jury and emphasised that in apply s.69 care should be taken not to give too much independent weight to the increase in time and costs which a jury would involve.
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The definition of defamatory must include a qualification or threshold of seriousness, so as to exclude trivial claims. One of the passages that the Claimant complained of, suggesting that she effectively gave interviewees for her book copy approval (a practice which was said to be disapproved of by journalists), was either not defamatory of her at all or was below the threshold of seriousness. As such the complaint in respect of that passage was struck out.
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The rule in defamation that words are taken to have a single meaning by which their truth or falsity can be ascertained did not apply in malicious falsehood claims, and a claimant could seek a remedy for publication of words which only some readers would interpret as bearing a meaning which was false.
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A defendant could not rely on qualified privilege in respect of the publication of an article about a charitable society’s financial affairs in so far as the article was published to non-members of that society who did not have an interest in such affairs.
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An appeal against a Master’s refusal to disapply a limitation period was rejected. The Court of Appeal’s different approach to the issue in personal injury claims in Cain v Francis did not affect the approach in defamation claims.
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A libel claim brought by the head of a Sikh group was stayed as non-justiciable as key issues in the claim could not be resolved without reference to Sikh doctrine.
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