Nevin v Roddy and Carty

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1936
• Date: 01 January 1936
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

[S. C., I.F.S.]

Nevin

and

Roddy and Carty

Privileged occasion - Defamatory words spoken at meeting of local authority by one member of another - Words reported in local newspaper as speaker of words intended they should be - Right of member defamed to reply in same newspaper - Whether letter written in reply and printed in newspaper privileged -Action against writer of letter and publisher of newspaper - Joint tortfeasors - No malice proved - Fair comment - Position of publisher of newspaper - Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888 (51 52 Vict. c. 64), s. 4.

The Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888, s. 4, provides: —A fair and accurate report published in any newspaper of the proceedings of. . . any meeting of a . . . town council . . . shall be privileged, unless it shall be proved that such a report or publication was published or made maliciously . . . Provided that the protection intended to be afforded by this section shall not be available as a defence in any proceedings if it shall be proved that the defendant has been requested to insert in the newspaper in which the report or other publication complained of appeared a reasonable letter or statement by way of contradiction or explanation of such report or other publication, and has refused or neglected to insert the same. Plaintiff brought an action to recover damages for libel against C., the writer of the matter complained of, and R., the proprietor of the newspaper in which the matter, in the form of a letter, was published. Both the plaintiff and C. were members of the Sligo Corporation and at a meeting of the Corporation the plaintiff and one, H. (who was also a member of the Corporation) had made certain statements about C. in reference to the appointment of a Town Clerk to the Corporation. These statements were deliberately made by the plaintiff not in committee but openly at the meeting, with the intention that they should be published in the public press. C. in his defence admitted having written the letter complained of but pleaded that it was written in answer to the said statements of the plaintiff and those of H. who, the plaintiff alleged, was acting in concert with the plaintiff. The said statements, C. alleged, were spoken falsely and maliciously for the purpose of holding him up to public opprobrium and knowing that they would be published in the public press, C. also pleaded that he wrote and published the words complained of believing the same to be true and without malice and on a...