Cooke v MGN Ltd [2014] EWHC 2831 (QB); [2015] 1 WLR 895; [2015] 2 All ER 622; [2014] EMLR 31
Lack of “serious harm” in defamation claim under Defamation Act 2013.
Facts
The defendants published an article about landlords profiting from rented housing on a street which was featured in a television programme called “Benefits Street.” It alleged that one landlord let a property in poor condition. The claimants were a housing association which owned three properties on the street and its chief executive. The claimants complained that although the factual assertions concerning them were true, those assertions, read in context, were defamatory. An apology was published in the next edition of the Sunday Mirror, one week after the original article.
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Issues
Section 1(1) Defamation Act 2013 provides that a statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause “serious harm” to the reputation of the claimant. The question of whether the claimants had suffered or were likely to suffer such harm was considered by the court as a preliminary issue. The court also determined the natural and ordinary meaning of the words complained of.
Decision/Outcome
Bean J rejected the suggested meaning that Midland Heart was a slum landlord, but found that the article conveyed that it made money from the residents’ misery and that Cooke personally profited from this.
The word “serious” in section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 was not defined and it was for the judge in contested claims to determine whether serious, and not merely substantial, harm to the claimant’s reputation had been or was likely to be caused. It was not sufficient to demonstrate serious distress or injury to feelings. In the instant case, the requirement of serious harm in the 2013 Act was not satisfied. The statements in the article did not fall into the category of statements which were so obviously likely to cause serious harm that the likelihood could be inferred from the words used. Although the words used were capable of being defamatory there was no specific evidence that the article had caused serious harm to the claimants’ reputations and none could be inferred. Bean J also found that serious harm in the future had not been shown to be more likely than not. The serious-harm preliminary issue was therefore decided against both claimants.
In reaching that conclusion, the judge attached significance to the apology. He considered it sufficient to eradicate or at least minimise the adverse impression for a reasonable reader who saw both publications. Not every reader would have seen it, but the apology was also much more accessible through internet searches than the original article.
