England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decision on defamation

1. Thus, the judge referred to the frequently cited summary of the law by Sir Anthony Clarke MR in Jeynes v News Magazine Limited [2008] EWCA Civ 130 at paragraph 14, where the Master of the Rolls said:



"14. The legal principles relevant to meaning…may be summarised in this way: (1) The governing principle is reasonableness. (2) The hypothetical reasonable reader is not naïve but he is not unduly suspicious. He can read between the lines. He can read an implication more readily than a lawyer and may indulge in a certain amount of loose thinking but he must be treated as being a man who is not avid for scandal and someone who does not, and should not, select one bad meaning where other non-defamatory meanings are available. (3) Over elaborate analysis is best avoided. (4) The intention of publisher is irrelevant. (5) The article must be read as a whole and any 'bane and antidote' taken together. (6) The hypothetical reader is taken to be representative of those who would read the publication in question. (7) In delimiting the range of permissible defamatory meanings, the court should rule out any meaning which, 'can only emerge as the product of some strained, or forced or utterly unreasonable interpretation…"…(8) It follows that 'it is not enough to say that by some person or another the words might be understood in a defamatory way."

1. It is clear from paragraphs 33 and 34 of his judgment, that in determining whether the words were capable of being defamatory of the claimant, the judge had regard to the inferential defamatory meaning he considered the words complained of were capable of bearing. I think he was right to do so. It was accepted that read literally, the Press Release simply meant the claimant had made the text public. But in order to determine whether the relevant words were capable of bearing a defamatory meaning of the claimant, the judge had to consider what (defamatory) inferences or implications the ordinary reasonable reader could draw from them. As Lord Reid said in Lewis v Daily Telegraph [1964] AC 234 at p.258 "… [M]ore often the sting is not so much in the words themselves as in what the ordinary man will infer from them, and that is also regarded as part of their natural and ordinary meaning."


2. In this respect of course, since the court is putting itself in the shoes of the notional ordinary reader, it must allow for "a certain amount of loose-thinking": per Lord Reid in Morgan v Odhams Press Ltd [1971] 1 WLR 1239 at p.1245, or, as Lord Devlin put it in Lewis at p.257 the fact that a laymen reads in an implication much more freely than a lawyer. It is also important to bear in mind that such a person would normally read (or hear) the relevant words once and would therefore get a broad impression of what is said; and that the layman would not engage in the sort of minute analysis (textual or legal) that a lawyer would.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Dingemans J.
[2013] EWHC 3355 (QB)


		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		20th February 2015

B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE McCOMBE
LADY JUSTICE SHARP
and
MR JUSTICE MITTING
____________________
Between:


	Paul Elliott	Appellant
	- and -
	Richard Rufus (in bankruptcy)	Respondent

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UK Supreme court Judgment on vicarious liability of prison authorities for torts of prisoners

The fact that the prison service, and the operators of contracted-out prisons,
are under a statutory duty to provide prisoners with useful work, is not incompatible
with the imposition of vicarious liability. The legislation does not itself exclude the
imposition of vicarious liability. Nor is it argued that any distinct point arises under
section 2(1)(a) of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, in terms of which the Crown is
subject to all those liabilities in tort to which, if it were a private person of full age
and capacity, it would be subject in respect of torts committed by its servants or
agents. Authorities concerned with compulsory pilotage are not in point: the prison
service is not required to provide particular types of employment, or to allocate 
particular prisoners to particular activities. In practice, prisoners can be allocated to
a variety of workplaces both inside and outside prisons, having regard to the relevant
risks. More particularly, the prison service is not compelled to employ prisoners in
the kitchen, and has a meaningful power of selection in respect of the prisoners it
chooses to employ there. It appears from the evidence that the prison service takes
particular care when selecting prisoners who are suitable to work in the kitchen,
having regard to the risks involved in that setting. A restricted pool from which to
select a workforce was a feature of the Christian Brothers case, and is not
uncommon even in ordinary cases of employment: an employer can only select from
those who apply for appointment, and may often have a small pool from which to
choose.
Hilary Term
[2016] UKSC 10
On appeal from: [2014] EWCA Civ 132
JUDGMENT
Cox (Respondent) v Ministry of Justice (Appellant)
before
Lord Neuberger, President
Lady Hale, Deputy President
Lord Dyson
Lord Reed
Lord Toulson
JUDGMENT GIVEN ON
2 March 2016

LORD REED: (with whom Lord Neuberger, Lady Hale, Lord Dyson and
Lord Toulson agree)

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