NORRIS and ANOR v ILLAWARRA NEWSPAPER HOLDINGS PTY LTD [1998] NSWCA 162

NORRIS v ILLAWARRA NEWSPAPER HOLDINGS PTY LTD

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

PRIESTLEY, SHELLER and COLE JJA 13 March 1998, 18 March 1998

[1998] NSWCA 162

DEFAMATION appeal - Held: 1. No procedural unfairness at trial. 2. No bias or prejudgment by trial judge. 3. No mix-statement of principle regarding defamation damages - s46(2) Defamation Act 1974 (NSW). 4. No procedural irregularities in the damages hearing. 5. No error in trial judge's finding of quantum of damages - amount of damages awarded was within the range and reasonable.

6. The Court should not interfere with trial judge's finding that the defamatory publication was not the cause of the appellant's business failure.

Priestley JA By his written submissions, and by what he said to the court, Mr Norris very clearly got across to me his strong belief that the law and the lawyers had not done right by him or his company in this case.

On considering the facts of the case and the way the trial judge handled it, I do not think there is any basis upon which this court could, or should, interfere with the result reached by the trial judge. Cole JA's reasons set out the detail of the matter and I agree with what he has written.

In short, my own opinion is that, notwithstanding Mr Norris's belief to the contrary, his claim and his company's claim were fairly dealt with by Badgery-Parker J, in accordance with the relevant legal rules. The only unusual thing about his reasons for judgment was their extreme thoroughness.

Sheller JA I agree with Cole JA.

Cole JA Garry Norris (Mr Norris), and Garry Norris Home Improvements Pty Ltd ("the Company"), sued Illawarra Newspaper Holdings Pty Ltd in defamation alleging that an article published by the newspaper on 26 March 1992 defamed each of them. The article related to an alleged dismissal of an employee for refusing to take the job of his supervisor who had arranged for the employee to obtain his job whilst the supervisor was absent on sick leave. In circumstances to which I will refer, the matter commenced before a jury but concluded before a judge alone. In a very detailed judgment delivered on 12 December 1995, Badgery-Parker J found that two of the imputations alleged to flow from the article, namely, that Mr Norris and the Company exploited young persons in the conduct of their business, and that Mr Norris had callously dismissed, and the Company had dismissed an employee for refusing the take over the position of a fellow employee who was ill, were established. Those imputations were held to be defamatory. Various defences based upon the alleged truth of the allegations in the article and common law and statutory qualified privilege were rejected. Mr Norris was awarded $60,000 damages and $5,920 interest. The Company was awarded $20,000 damages and $6,175 interest.