Hunt v Star Newspaper Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1908 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
Defamation - Libel - Personal Imputation - Plea of Fair Comment - Meaning and Effect of - Misdirection - New Trial.
In an action for libel based upon articles published in the defendants' newspaper the plaintiff alleged that the articles imputed to him improper conduct in the discharge of his duties as deputy returning officer at a municipal election. The defendants pleaded justification and fair comment. At the trial the judge directed the jury that if they found the statements in the articles to be libellous and the facts truly stated, then the question for them would be whether the comment was bona fide and fair, or whether it tended, as alleged, to charge the plaintiff with improper conduct. No separate questions were left to the jury, and they returned a general verdict for the plaintiff with damages. Upon an application for a new trial:—
Held by the Court of Appeal, that the question of fair comment had not been properly left to the jury as a separate issue, and that there must be a new trial on the ground of misdirection.
APPLICATION by the defendants for judgment or a new trial on appeal from the verdict of a jury at the trial before Lawrance J.
The action was for damages for a libel contained in certain statements published by the defendants in two articles in the Star newspaper of March 2, 1907, and in the Morning Leader of March 4, 1907. The plaintiff, Mr. John Hunt, town clerk of the city of Westminster, alleged that these statements charged him with not having acted honestly and bona fide in the discharge of his statutory duties as deputy returning officer for the London County Council elections, with having acted improperly and unfairly in the interests of one political party as against the other, and with having been actuated by political bias.
It appeared that the plaintiff acted as deputy returning officer at the election of members of the London County Council for Westminster which was held on March 2, 1907. At the Caxton Hall polling station he had occasion, in discharge of his statutory duties, to require certain personation agents to retire from positions which they had taken up in the room. This occasioned disputes between him and the said agents and others, and the removal by his order of certain persons from the said polling station. The evidence taken at the trial as to what took place on the occasion in question was conflicting. The following were the articles complained of:—
In the Star:
“In Westminster.
“Serious Allegations made by Progressive Candidates.
“The Star was informed this afternoon that formal protests had been handed in by the Progressive candidates in Westminster, Messrs. Campbell and Herrin, against the action of Mr. John Hunt (clerk to the Moderate city council), who was the deputy returning officer at the Caxton Hall polling station. Mr. Hunt ordered the exclusion from the hall of the Progressive personation agents, one of whom was Major Hobart, lately Liberal candidate for the division, and it is further alleged that Mr. Campbell, although one of the candidates, was refused admission. It is further stated that one of the Westminster City Council officials doing duty at the polling station used the words ‘I am not going to take the opinion of my political opponents’ to Mr. Herrin, the other Progressive candidate. This assertion of political bias on the part of an officer at a polling station is to be the subject of grave inquiry, and we are assured that the attention of Parliament will be called to the matter next week. The chairman of the Westminster Liberal Association told a Star reporter this evening that an appeal was being made to Mr. Gomme (clerk of the London County Council and returning officer) to overrule the decision of his deputy at Westminster. ‘It is absolutely necessary that personation agents should be at Caxton Hall,’ he added. ‘Already we have detected plural voters recording second votes, and in cases where the evidence is conclusive we are determined to prosecute.’”
In the Morning Leader:
“Obstructing Progressives.
“Extraordinary Action by Westminster Polling Official.
“At the Caxton Hall (Westminster) polling station extraordinary obstacles were placed in the way of the Progressive polling agents in the performance of their duties — duties of particular importance in a constituency where plural voting exists on an abnormal scale. Mr. John Hunt, the town clerk, who is a Moderate, relegated the Progressive agents to a part of the hall where they could neither see the voters' faces nor hear their numbers, and were thus completely frustrated in their legitimate duty of seeing whether an elector was voting for the second time. The remonstrances of Major Hobart (late Liberal candidate for Westminster) and Mr. Montefiore Brice (chairman of the Westminster Liberal Association), who were acting as unpaid polling agents, resulted in their being turned out of the hall by the police, together with Captain Hemphill. On the failure of an attempt to obtain fair treatment, the Progressive candidates, Mr. W. B. Campbell and Mr. Edwin Herrin, handed in a formal protest, and withdrew their polling agents from the hall. Mr. Hunt told Mr. Herrin that he did not intend to take advice from the opposition. The incident is to be made the subject of a question in Parliament.”
The defendants by their statement of defence denied that the words complained of bore the meaning alleged and said that they were not libellous. They pleaded that in so far as the said words consisted of statements of fact they were in their natural and ordinary signification true in substance and in fact, and that in so far as they consisted of comment they were fair and bona fide comment upon a matter of public interest and importance.
Lawrance J. in summing up to the jury, after reading the articles in question and the allegations of the plaintiff as to what the defendants meant thereby, said: “If a man writes something which has a tendency to prejudice a person in the office he is holding and says that he has not conducted himself properly in that office, that would be a libel. The question whether the words did mean what I have just read to you, the innuendo, is first of all a question for me whether the words are capable of that construction, and I hold that they are capable of that construction, and then it remains for you to say whether that is the proper view of the case.” Then, after alluding to the defence that the words complained of were fair and bona fide comment upon a matter of public interest and importance, he said: “It is for me to say whether it is matter of public interest, as undoubtedly it was. It was a matter of public interest that a gentleman occupying the position of the plaintiff should properly discharge his duties. Then the question for you will be, if you find that these words were libellous and were intended to convey the meaning that I have already read to you that is alleged by the plaintiff, whether the words which purport to be statements of what took place are, in fact, true in substance and in fact. I need hardly point out to you that a man's words, however libellous they may be, if they are true would not be libel, and the plaintiff would not be entitled to damages. The question is whether the words, in so far as they relate to what took place at the polling station upon this particular day, are true, and in so far as they consist of comment whether it was bona fide and fair comment. The comment is their own remark made with regard to what is alleged to have taken place. If a newspaper publishes exactly what took place with no comment whatever, they would be justified in so doing as a matter of public interest, but if they add to that comment of their own, then the question is whether that comment was bona fide and fair comment, or whether it was comment which tended, as alleged here, to charge the plaintiff with improper conduct. That is, so far as the law goes, the question in this case.”
Then, after reviewing the evidence at length, the learned judge continued: “Now, gentlemen, I have gone purposely at some length through the evidence, and you have the whole matter before you. I have told you the law on the question of libel, and it is for you to say whether these paragraphs which were inserted in these newspapers are libels or not. If you come to the conclusion that they are libels and are such as would have a tendency to prejudice the plaintiff in his position of town clerk of Westminster, of presiding officer and deputy returning officer of the county council elections, then you must give him your verdict. Then the next question is whether the defence is made out that the accounts given in these two articles of what happened at the Caxton Hall on this occasion were true in substance and in fact as far as they related to the details of what took place at the Caxton Hall. Then as far as comment is concerned you will consider whether that comment is fair and bona fide comment, or whether it is for the purpose of suggesting, as is alleged by the plaintiff, that he was acting in an improper way.” In conclusion the learned judge said: “Now, gentlemen, that is the whole case. It is for you to decide, first of all, whether these articles constitute a libel, and, if so, the next question for you will be whether the defendants can make out their defence of justification, whether the words are true in so far as they purport to be an account of what took place at the hall, and whether the comment made upon them was fair comment. If you find that the words were libellous and that the defence is not made out you will say so. It is entirely for you to take the facts into your consideration and say, if you find for the plaintiff, what you think are fair and reasonable damages.”
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