Mirror Newspapers Ltd v World Hosts Pty Ltd [1979] HCA 3

High Court of Australia Gibbs, Stephen, Mason, Jacobs and Murphy JJ. Mirror Newspapers Ltd v World Hosts Pty Ltd [1979] HCA 3

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1979, Feb. 20 Gibbs J.

I would dismiss this appeal for the reasons stated by Mason and Jacobs JJ., with which I am in general agreement.

Stephen J.

I have had the advantage of reading the joint judgment of Mason and Jacobs JJ. I am in agreement with it and would accordingly dismiss this appeal.

Mason and Jacobs JJ.

This case has had a chequered history. On 27th September 1973 the defendant published in its newspaper The Australian the following news item:

Caprice Owner Declared Bankrupt by Court

A Point Piper restaurateur, George Pierce Countis, was declared bankrupt in Sydney yesterday.

Countis carries on business at the Caprice Restaurant, Rose Bay.

Mr. S. Fiszman of Bondi Junction, claimed in the Bankruptcy Court that Countis owed him $546 as the balance of a debt of $1046. Final judgment on this debt was received in the Sydney District Court on October 12, 1972.

Countis did not appear at the hearing but two intervening creditors—the Bank of NSW and the City Bank of California—were represented.

Mr. Justice Sweeney made a sequestration order against Countis' estate.

The plaintiff, who was at all material times the owner of, and conducted, the restaurant business known as Caprice Restaurant in Sunderland Avenue, Rose Bay, sued the defendant for damages for defamation. By its amended statement of claim the plaintiff asserted that the words " Caprice Owner " in the headline referred to it. No innuendo was pleaded. The principal defence pleaded by the defendant was that the publication was not defamatory of the plaintiff, indeed that it was incapable of bearing a meaning defamatory of the plaintiff.