Beevis v Dawson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SINGLETON,LORD JUSTICE JENKINS,LORD JUSTICE PARKER |
| Judgment Date | 07 November 1956 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1956] EWCA Civ J1107-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 07 November 1956 |
[1956] EWCA Civ J1107-1
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Lord Justice Singleton
Lord Justice Jenkins and
Lord Justice Parker
Mr. D. CANTLEY Q.C. and Mr. NORMAN TAPP (instructed by Messrs. C. Butcher and Simon Burns) appeared as Counsel on behalf of the Appellant (Plaintiff).
Mr. J. PLATTS-MILLS (instructed by Mr. Cyril Saper) appeared as Counsel on behalf of the Respondents (Defendants).
This is an appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment of Mr. Justice Finnemore, who sat with a Jury and who gave his judgment on the 1st May, 1956. The claim of the Plaintiff, Frederick John Beevis, was for damages for libel, and it was brought against three Defendants, the first and chief of whom is George John Dawson. The other two are Gilbert Alastair William Graham Cockbum and Jasper Addis. Jasper Addis was called as a witness on behalf of the Plaintiff.
The verdict of the Jury was that the Plaintiff should recover the sum of one farthing damages against all the Defendants. Addis had not entered an appearance, and judgment against him had been signed in default.
The Plaintiff asks this court to say that the verdict and judgment should be set aside, and that there should be a re-hearing of the case, and that includes a request for a re-hearing against Addis, who gave evidence on behalf of the Plaintiff. Addis has not appeared or bean represented upon this appeal, and I say nothing more about the case against him. Obviously the main contestants are Mr. Beevis, the Plaintiff, and Mr. Dawson, the first Defendant.
The document of which complaint is made is at the end of the bundle of documents. It appears to be addressed to Mr. George Dawson, and it gives what purports to be the history, or some part of the history, of Mr. Beevis, the Plaintiff. There can be no doubt that it is defamatory of Mr. Beevis on the face of it. The odd thing is that it appears to be addressed to Mr. Dawson, and there was evidence to show that Mr. Dawson had published it in different ways. I do not profess to be familiar with the whole of the evidence which was given in the case, though a good deal of it has been read to us. Nor do I propose to read the document. I have said enough about It.
A Statement of Claim wes delivered on behalf of the Plaintiff, and a Defence was delivered on behalf of the firsttwo Defendants. The Defence denies publication. It sets up more than one defence, and the last paragraph of the amended Defence pleads that the words are true in substance and in fact, and it adds that "Full particulars of justification will be delivered as ordered".
The Particulars of Justification, which were delivered on the 9th August, 1955, occupy seventeen pages of foolscap, and there are thirty-two paragraphs of them. They are very complete, I should say, and upon those particulars the parties went to trial. The Defendant is bound by the Particulars of Justification which he has given.
The Plaintiff was represented at the trial by Mr. Caplan and Mr. Tapp. The first two Defendants were represented by Mr. Platts-Mills. There began almost from the commencement of the case a wrangling or quarrelling or bickering between Counsel, and it lasted throughout the case. In Volume 5.B. of the Transcript, p. 65, Mr. Justice Finnemore, before whom the case was heard, said in reply to Mr. Caplan: "There is a lot to be complained of on both sides, if you want my view. I hope both of you will be careful". It is not often that the Judge has to address Counsel in that way. In reply to that remark, Mr. Caplan said: "My Lord, over and over again this has happened". A little later Mr. Platte-Mills said: "My learned friend does not want me to go into that matter. The whole of his interventions seem to be aimed at preventing me opening to the Jury the matters I want to. I have never been so dealt with in the opening of a case in my life. It is extremely embarrassing to proceed with the opening at all when at every point I am met with a reading of long passages." Mr. Justice Finnemore said: "A lot of people have the idea that Juries do not comprehend what is going on. I think they do. (Mr. Platts-Mills): If your Lordship pleases. (Mr. Justice Finnemore): Juries are intelligent people and they know what is happening. They can weigh up, rightly or otherwise, as theythink fit, interruptions on either side – whether they think they are justified or not. (Mr. Platts-Mills); If your Lordship pleases. (Mr. Justice Finnemore): They are the best people in the world to do it".
The training of one who is called to the Bar in this country is intended to help him to understand that a Member of the Bar is a helper in the administration of Justice. He is there to help the Judge, and, when there is a Jury, to help the Jury, to arrive at a proper result in the dispute between the parties. If a case is conducted as this was, the Judge is deprived of the assistance which he is entitled to expect from Counsel. Continuous bickering becomes a burden for everyone in court – for Judge and for Jury – and it is almost impossible for justice to be done if that goes on. It is not surprising in, in such circumstances, a Judge gets tired or if the Jury get tired; sometimes it leads to confusion. That may well have happened in this case. I hope it will be a long time before this kind of thing happens again. Jurors who are called to sit in this building where disputes between litigants have to he decided ought not to have their time wasted as was the case here.
Early in the hearing Mr Caplan said that he did not propose to call his client, Mr. Beevis, at the time one might expect; he preferred to keep his evidence to be called in rebuttal when evidence had been given on behalf of the Defendant in support of his justification of the alleged libel. I feel sure the Jury would have been interested to see Mr. Beevis. He was not called during the hearing. Quite often Mr. Caplan said that he was going to call him, and on one occasion he went so far as to say that he undertook to call him when the Defendant had proved his Particulars of Justification There came a time when the Jury asked if a majority verdict would be accepted, and they were told that it could not be, or would not be. Some time later the Jury asked if they might retire. At that stage the Plaintiff's evidence had been called.The Plaintiff had closed his case, subject, it is submitted, to his right to call evidence in rebuttal. Mr. Platts-Mills had opened the Defendants' case for roughly a day and a half – allowing, of course, for interruptions – and he had called some evidence. The Jury wished to retire. There was some discussion In the presence of the Jury. A short direction was given to the Jury by the Judge. The Jury retired. Mr. Caplan reminded the Judge that perhaps the Jury should have been told something else. After a considerable interval without any further direction, the Jury came back to court and Returned a verdict for the Plaintiff, assessing the damages at one farthing, and, after argument, judgment was entered for the Plaintiff with one farthing damages.
It might well have been thought by everyone when the Jury decided that they wished to retire at that stage – that is before the Defendants' case was concluded – that the Jury was about to find against the Plaintiff and for the Defendant. But the Jury did not do so; they found against the Defendant, assessing the damages at the low figure of one farthing. The Defendants do not object to that; they could not well do so for the Jury did what Mr. Platts-Mills had suggested that they should do. It is the Plaintiff who appeals and seeks a re-hearing.
The only reason that I can see for the Jury adopting that course – finding against the Defendant in the middle of the Defendant's evidence – was that it was what Mr. Platts-Mills had invited them to do during his speech, as I shall show in a moment. However, they did it, and now objection is taken on behalf of the Plaintiff.
The Plalntiff's appeal in this court has been in the hands of Mr. Cantley and Mr. Tapp, and I hope I may say that it has been conducted with skill and with care. Certain main points are taken. It was submitted by Mr. Cantley, first, that the Plaintiff was entitled to give evidence in rebuttal beforethe Jury game a verdict, and secondly, that the Jury should not have been allowed to return a verdict until they had been directed (a) on the position in law, and (b) on the nature and effect of the evidence they had heard. The Plaintiff relied upon the fact that at one stage of his opening of the Defence Mr. Platts-Mills had misstated the evidence. Mr. Platts-Mills was at the time opening his case, and I am inclined to think that he was doing that which he was entitled to do, though the impression given from the Transcript of his opening may lead one to think that it might convey to the Jury that that which he said had been reached in the evidence already given, whereas in fact it had not. I do not think that there is any real substance in that part of the submission, and I say no more about it. There are matters of more importance. It la claimed on behalf of the Plaintiff that, there being a plea of justification in the Defence, the Plaintiff was entitled to reserve his evidence upon that part of the case until later, and to give evidence in rebuttal. That submission is based on statements of practice in several text-books. I refer to one only, the 4th Edition of Gatley on Libel and Slander, at page 582; "Where there is a plea of justification on the record it is usual, and more convenient, for the plaintiff not to call any evidence in rebuttal as part of his own case, but to leave it to the defendant to make out his plea, and then give evidence of any matters which are properly admissible to rebut the plea. The plaintiff may, however, anticipate, if he thinks...
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...beforehand of the steps by which the parties should have proceeded was desirable, particularly in the light of later developments. In Beevis v. Dawson [1956] 3 All E.R. 837 where, in a libel action, there was, inter alia: no ruling whether the plaintiff could give evidence in rebuttal, Sing......