Rspca Awarded 100,000 Damages

[Steve]

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/newsletter-ordered-to-pay-rspca-100000-for-libel-20111130-1o62n.html

Newsletter ordered to pay RSPCA $100,000 for libel

November 30, 2011 - 1:12PM An online newsletter editor has been ordered to pay $100,000 in defamation damages to the RSPCA after claiming it was cruel and needlessly destroyed animals.

In the NSW Supreme Court today, Justice Megan Latham ordered Mal Davies, the editor of SOS-News, to pay the damages relating to an article on March 19 this year.

Mr Davies took no part in the proceedings, in which the RSPCA sued him, claiming the article contained six false defamatory meanings.

Advertisement: Story continues below The article referred to a 78-year-old farmer, Ruth Downey, failing to get special leave to mount a High Court challenge in relation to animal cruelty charges.

The defamatory meanings included that RSPCA NSW was a cruel organisation in that it executed healthy cows for no reason and that it killed Ms Downey's cows in an inhumane way.

The judge said claims that the RSPCA acted cruelly and for significant financial benefits of its directors, rather than for its stated objectives, clearly had the tendency to lower the organisation's reputation.

As well as $100,000 damages, Justice Latham made orders including that Mr Davies be restrained from publishing any matter substantially to the same effect as the article.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/newsletter-ordered-to-pay-rspca-100000-for-libel-20111130-1o62n.html#ixzz1fDyAUnNi

[experiencedfun]

ooohhhhhh

[smooch]

Typical

[megan_]

I'm pretty sure this has already been posted and was removed by Troy. Remember, he can be sued if people make false claims as well.

[Steve]

No one here is making any claims - false or otherwise that I can see - its a link to a newspaper article which is factual and saying someone was found guilty of libel.

[megan_]

the last thread did Steve - it brought out the "I hate the RSPCA" crowd, I was just being proactive/a manic merchant

[Katdogs]

I posted the link yesterday and it was gone very quickly - I didn't think until afterwards that it might be inviting comment that could get Troy into trouble (sorry Troy)

[Steve]

I posted the link yesterday and it was gone very quickly - I didn't think until afterwards that it might be inviting comment that could get Troy into trouble (sorry Troy)

O.K.- I missed it. But for the record I think its a good thing and now the RSPCA have gone that way Ive no doubt other victims of libel will follow suit.

[Everythings Shiny]

[WreckitWhippet]

It's not a good thing, the RSPCA has trampled all over people for years and now they cannot speak out against the injustices they have been dealt. We will now be silenced and cannot comment on the likes of Rozzie, the Gard Tibbies etc .

[dog_fan]

It's not a good thing, the RSPCA has trampled all over people for years and now they cannot speak out against the injustices they have been dealt. We will now be silenced and cannot comment on the likes of Rozzie, the Gard Tibbies etc .

Anyone can say anything as long as it's the truth. Obviously the RSPCA won the case because there was proof the information published was false.

[Steve]

It's not a good thing, the RSPCA has trampled all over people for years and now they cannot speak out against the injustices they have been dealt. We will now be silenced and cannot comment on the likes of Rozzie, the Gard Tibbies etc .

Anyone can say anything as long as it's the truth. Obviously the RSPCA won the case because there was proof the information published was false.

Last time I looked Libel laws dont need evidence that what is said is true or false.

[mita]

From The News Manual re Defamation Law in Australia (now uniform). Whether something is proven to be true or not is relevant & would have been applied in the OP case:

Truth

Truth (which is also called justification) is probably the best defence. Formerly in some states (such as NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT) truth was only a defence if you could prove that a ‘public interest’ was served by publishing the defamatory words. This requirement has been dropped from the Uniform Defamation Law and now there is a defence if the defendant can prove that the defamatory imputations are substantially true.

[Steve]

Thank you

Even Better.

[JulesP]

It would be in Troy's interests to let people read this so they realise the consequences of defamation.

Note that it is up to the defendant to prove that the words were true. It isn't up to the plaintive to prove the words were not true.

So 'someone told me that blah blah blah' would be hard to prove to be true.

Edited December 2, 2011 by JulesP

[Steve]

Correct me if Im wrong but in thIS case it was because this guy said it and he distributed it as the owner of the newsletter.

If someone defames someone on a site owned by someone else - who is guilty the owner of the site or the person who made the comment or both?

Can the site/blog owner be held accountable for what someone else says as a newspaper can be if it is published? Or are they only able to be sued for libel if they say it?

[Kirty]

I am pretty sure the website/blog/forum can be sued, regardless of who said it.

Is this the bloke who randomly emails people massive spiels about the RSPCA?

[dog_fan]

I think both can be sued, the blog/web site owner especially so if they had been made aware of the defamatory post/s and did not remove them.

[sandgrubber]

I think both can be sued, the blog/web site owner especially so if they had been made aware of the defamatory post/s and did not remove them.

I think this is a grey area in which the law is evolving. Lots of people can be sued. The more important question is whether the suit will be successful. It's going to take decades to sort that out. Sigh.

For safety sake, don't slander and don't propagate slander. Even if it seems like good fun and a little bit of an exaggeration.

The RSPCA has done both good an bad things. If you're going to accuse them of 'bad', make sure you're accurate and have good evidence, cause they have strong backing from elite establishment groups . . . hence the 'R' (which dates back ~150 years). And if you get wild with your accusations, don't complain if your post disappears. DOL needs to protect its backside.

[mymatejack]

Both the poster and the forum owner can be sued.

The one thing that confuses me with this case is how the RSPCA was able to sue for defamation. The law as far as i know only allows companies/organisations with less than 10 employees to sue for defamation(there are other suits which companies use to get around that). I'm guessing RSPCA NSW would employ more than 10 people? Would be interested to know how they got around that.