MARSDEN v AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LTD [1996] NSWCA 341

MARSDEN v AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LTD

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

PRIESTLEY, HANDLEY and COLE JJA 29 and 30 April 1996, 2 May 1996

[1996] NSWCA 341

Application for interlocutory injunction to restrain television broadcast pending hearing of summons for leave to appeal against refusal of first instance judge to grant such injunction — proposed broadcast on matter of public interest also relevant to claimant's pending defamation proceedings — competing considerations — Application refused

Priestley, Handley and Cole JJA INTRODUCTORY.

The claimant in the application now before the Court of Appeal is Mr J Marsden, a solicitor, who may fairly be described as a public figure. The opponent is Amalgamated Television Services Pty Ltd, which runs the television station known as Channel 7.

On 14 March 1995, the claimant began defamation proceedings against the opponent. The allegedly defamatory matter had been broadcast on Channel 7 the previous day.

It seems clear that in his defamation proceedings the claimant will be able to prove that the opponent published a number of defamatory imputations about him to the general effect that he had engaged in homosexual activity with under-age boys.

The opponent has defended the defamation proceedings on a number of grounds. One of these is that if any of the imputations relied on by the claimant is defamatory then the matter complained of conveyed stated contextual imputations each relating to a matter of public interest or published under qualified privilege and each a matter of substantial truth.

The defence presently on file was in answer to a statement of claim alleging two imputations. On 23 March 1996 a further statement of claim was filed by the claimant in which five further imputations were added. The opponent had until 29 April 1996 to file a defence to this latest statement of claim. That was Monday of this week. The parties were engaged in court for virtually the whole of that and the following day. It has been common ground in the present proceedings that the opponent would file a further defence raising grounds of defence to the further imputations of the same kind as those raised against the previous two imputations. The term "justification" has been used as a shorthand description of some of these defences.