LIBEL IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 33, 7 August 1936, Page 13

LIBEL IN BRITAIN

GOLD-DIGGING CASES

A BILL TO STOP THEM

Libel actions which Lord Justice Maugham recently described as "gold digging operations" were discussed In private at the Empire Press Union Conference in London, says the "Manchester Guardian." ...

Mr. Kenneth.Henderson, the manager of the legal department of Associated Newspapers, Ltd.,-placed before the conference a suggested Bill to amend the law of libel, which would abolish such actions as those referred to by Lord Justice Maugham arid others, which Mr. Henderson described as "guessing competitions" and "a pleasant form of speculation in which the potential profit is large and'the amount which need be invested very small." The measure, which is not to apply to Scotland, proposes:—

1. No action for libel published after the passing of this Act shall lie without proof of actual damage unless the words complained of— '

(a) Impute to any girl or woman unchastity or adultery; or (b) Charge the plaintiff with having committed a criminal offence which is punishable corporally or impute that the plaintiff has an obnoxious contagious disease; or

(c) Are published of th(* plaintiff in relation to his or her office, profession or trade. '

Provided always that unless the .Judge certifies to the contrary a plaintiff shall not in respect of any action brought under sunsection la) and. (.O hereof recover more costs than damages. Amplifying these proposals, Mr. Henderson said:— ■ . . "Manifestly, the first question which arises is: Are the newspapers at fault; or is the law defective? Personally, I hold the view that the newspapers must, take some of the blame. "HUMAN-INTEREST" STORIES. "If you compare the contents of the average newspaper of today with the contents of a newspaper of," say, prewar days, the most nofficeable difference, apart from the illustrations/is the increased number of human-interest stories. In other words, newspapers tend to give more and mofe space to personal rather than impersonal news "It is very difficult to be personal without at times being offensive, and juries cannot be expected to draw too fine a distinction between statements which are defamatory and those which are merely offensive. "The remedy for that lies in your own hands. In the same way, many libels—libels^of inadvertence and gener. ally the product of carelessness or ignorance—can be avoided if certain rules are observed. These risks,' and numerous others of a similar character are the normal risks of newspaper production, and as such must be borne. "But, after making full allowance for the troubles of our own creation, there is a great and growing volume of libel litigation which is, in. my opinion, directly attributable to overdeveloped case law and to the fact that in libel the damages are always' at large. That the fundamental principles of the law relating to defamation have suffered from the .judicial determination of nice points is, I think, unquestioned. ' :. ■ ' .--..■:.

Litigation in itself is no part of the law; indeed, excessive litigation is the plainest indication of some defect in the law; and if libel litigation is excessive,

then, the mischief can only be met by new' legislation to repair the defect.

"I have come to the conclusion that any new legislation had best be directed to bringing the law of libel more into conformity with the law of slander, and extending the discretion of the Judge on the question of costs in some classes of actions. The Bill which I was asked to draft is based on those views.

; "Libel is almost the only wrong in which a plaintifC may recover damages without proving that he has suffered a single penny of financial loss, and it is almost the only wrong in which the assessment of damages does not depend on any definite legal rule. Juries whose duty it is to determine the amount of these damages have nothing to guide them.

"The result is that any person speculatively inclined about whom a statement which is technically defamatory has been published may, without proving that it has caused him the loss of a single penny, bring legal proceedings and recover heavy damages, awarded often for no better reason than that the defendants are a large and supposedly wealthy corporation.

"The danger of these excessive awards would riot be so great were it not that in recent years the class of statements which the law regards as capable of a defamatory meaning has been very greatly extended and the opportunities for speculative claims correspondingly increased. UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES. "This is because the Courts have held that statements ex facie innocent and harmless may'yet be defamatory because of some circumstances entirely unknown to the person publishing them. "It may be.possible for a newspaper to keep its columns clear of statements obviously defamatory, but it cannot by any degree of care tell beforehand what innocent statement may become defamatory because of circumstances of which the newspaper is not and cannot be aware.

"Certain classes of claims are rapidly developing into guessing competitions. The defendants guess what sum may tempt the 'plaintiff and the plaintiff guesses what sumythe jury may give him. h "I have endeavoured to deal with this situation and to' exclude the purely frivolous action by introducing into the Bill provisions which may go some way to." prevent actions being brought unless some genuine injury has been suffered by the plaintiff, but which should not deprive of his remedy any person whose reputation has suffered real damage.

, "It is not suggested that the Bill will remove entirely the troubles which beset us, but I trust that an alteration of law somewhat on the lines I have indicated may meet with the approval not only of newspapers but of all who are desirous of seeing our libel laws placed on a more satisfactory basis." There did not seem to be nowadays any real, reason why the great.distinction between the law of libel'and the law of slander should continue to exist concluded Mr. Henderson.