MALICE NOT PROVED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1938, Page 9

MALICE NOT PROVED

ACTION BY MATRON FAILS.

THE WAIHI HOSPITAL CASE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 11. Judgment for defendant without costs was given by Mr Justice Fair in the Supreme Court in the case in which Mrs Isabella Jane Paddock, former matron of Waihi Hospital, sued Dr. Archibald Jenkins, medical superintendent of the hospital, claiming £475 damages for alleged slander and libel. Plaintiff alleged that Dr. Jenkins had spoken falsely and maliciously of her to members of the Waihi Hospital Board and others. Defendant made a general denial and claimed that if the words complained of were used they were privileged and used without malice and in the belief that they were true. His Honour said he had found earlier that publication of the words complained of had been proved in each case except one in which plaintiff did not desire to proceed. He found also that in each case the words were spoken on an occasion which conferred qualified privilege on the defendant, which meant that the words were privileged unless malice on his part could be shown. That left as the sole issue the question of whether plaintiff had established that, in making these defamatory statements, defendant was actuated by malice, so as to remove the protection of qualified privilege. If the statements were made with an honest desire to perform a duty and were not due to other motives, then protection was afforded. It was not necessarily malice although statements were excessive and went beyond what the facts reasonably justified. Many considerations led to the conclusion that Mrs Paddock was not as suitable as matron as he wished to have in the hospital. "I think the same motive really governed him all through,” said his Honour, “a desire to see the best matron in the hospital, and in the performance of that he made a great number of indiscreet statements which could not be substantiated but in no case did I find it proved that he was influenced by malice in these matters.”

His Honour then gave judgment for defendant without costs.