Smith v ADVFN Plc and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Ward,Lord Justice Richards,Lord Justice Jackson |
| Judgment Date | 11 May 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] EWCA Civ 657 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2 / 2008 / 2139 |
| Date | 11 May 2010 |
[2010] EWCA Civ 657
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(Mr Justice Eady)
Before: Lord Justice Ward
Lord Justice Richards
and
Lord Justice Jackson
Case No: A2 / 2008 / 2139
Mr Jonathan Crystal and Mr Max Eppel (instructed by Pro Bono Bar Unit) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
The Respondent did not appear and was not represented.
Lord Justice Ward:
This was at all times an unusual set of cases to come to this court by way of appeal and its exceptional category has been exemplified by the way the appeal developed in the course of submissions made by Mr Jonathan Crystal, who now appears with Mr Max Eppel for the appellant. I am grateful to him for his responses to the points to him by the court. It has resulted in the effective collapse of the appeal under pressure from the court and it is therefore unnecessary for me to give a full judgment. I need do no more than explain how this extraordinary position has come about.
In summary the situation is this. Mr Smith, the appellant, was successful some time before late 2005 in setting up an action group to recover compensation for investors in some fraudulently conducted company. Knowing of that success, and I hasten to add I do not know much about the extent of that success, investors in another company called Langbar International Limited (“Langbar”) approached him for help following the discovery of what is alleged to be serious fraud in the conduct of that company. Those approaches were made via the bulletin boards on a financial information website of a company whose website is ADVFN. com. Some days thereafter the appellant set up the Langbar Action Group website, which he says had grown to about 450 members. His efforts to secure compensation for them did not meet with universal approval, with the result that a group of shareholders and others whom he describes as “the malcontents” openly and vociferously opposed his actions. Their disaffections were “posted” on the ADVFN Langbar bulletin boards, usually under a pseudonym or an avatar, whatever that means, the appellant's name being “Anonymous”.
It is his case that what he calls a hate campaign which amounts to cyber-bullying has been waged against him as the messages stacked up on this ethereal bulletin board. As they stacked up, so he suggests a profusion of defamatory statements were published about him. He says that some 267 defamatory statements had been made by 71 offenders, though some may be the same person using a different pseudonym. He says that the offenders have continued to publish defamatory material and there is no sign of that abating.
His response was to issue claims for damages for defamation once he had determined through Norwich Pharmacal proceedings the real identity of the authors. At first these claims were assigned to different masters of the Queen's Bench but as the trickle became a discernible flood the Senior Master intervened and ordered on 25 April 2008 as follows, first:
“ [the particular claim before him, being one against a Mr Murjani] and the claims listed in the Schedule to this order are to be re-assigned to Master Fontaine if not already assigned to her. [I interpolate that on the schedule were a list of 36 defendants including the eight who are the respondents to this appeal.]
Paragraph 2–6 read:
“2) Until further order, all claims issued in future by the claimant in the central office are to be assigned to Master Fontaine.
3) Until further order, all claims listed in the Schedule to this order are stayed
4) Until further order, all claims issued in the future by the claimant are to be stayed after issue, and services not to be effected and the Central Office shall keep all sealed copies of the Claim Form on file.
5) The claims listed in the schedule are to be referred to Eady J to consider insofar as he thinks appropriate, whether the Claimant should be the subject of any form of restraint order, whether the claims have a real prospect of success, whether they should be consolidated and what other case management...
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