NSW Caselaw
New South Wales Court of Appeal
Ainsworth v Burden [2005] NSWCA 174 CITATION: This decision has been amended. Please see the end of the judgment for a list of the amendments.
HEARING DATE(S): 15 April 2005
JUDGMENT DATE: 21 June 2005
JUDGMENT OF: Handley JA at 1; McColl JA at 2; Hunt AJA at 3
DECISION: 1.The appeal is allowed.; 2.The plaintiff's application to amend the particulars of malice and to supply particulars of his claim for aggravated damages is allowed.; 3.The plaintiff is to pay one-third of the defendant's costs of the seven days of the trial.; 4.The defendant is to pay the plaintiff's costs of the appeal.
CATCHWORDS: Letter written to Police Minister by defendant imputing that plaintiff not a fit and proper person to hold gaming licence or to be associated with holder of such licence - Police Minister directs investigation into allegations made in letter - defamation action based on letter - defendant pleads defences of truth and qualified privilege - malice pleaded in answer to qualified privilege - - - - At trial plaintiff seeks to tender five judgments of Licensing Court and report of investigation into defendant's allegations all rejecting those allegations, of which defendant was aware, as evidence of malice by defendant's persistence in asserting truth of his allegations in face of their constant rejection by authorities - tender rejected by trial judge as unfairly prejudicial to defendant, as strength of findings in favour of plaintiff such that jurors unable to put them out of mind when considering defence of truth - Evidence Act 1995, s 135 - error by judge - - - - At trial plaintiff seeks to amend by adding to particulars of malice and supplying particulars of aggravated damages - judge rejects on principles of case management- similarity of issues in malice and aggravated damages - error by judge - - - - Judge rules that, after withdrawal of defence of truth and in absence of particulars of aggravated damages or of falsity, no issue of truth or falsity arose - discussion of relevance of truth and falsity in defamation - error by judge
We try to embed the page this law was scraped from. If the site blocks framing, you still get the link and a local excerpt.
Last checked with source on —
Checking whether the official page can be embedded…
Plain-English simplify of this law: a short summary, key points, and both sides of the argument. Generated on first view via Replicate, then cached. Vote on what helps your study.
No study brief is cached for this law yet. Sign up to generate a plain-English brief.
Sign up to generate