Gary BURNS v HARBOUR RADIO PTY LTD & Anor [2008] NSWSC 1254

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Gary BURNS v HARBOUR RADIO PTY LTD & Anor [2008] NSWSC 1254

HEARING DATE(S) : 11 November 2008

JUDGMENT DATE : 27 November 2008

JUDGMENT OF : Simpson J

1. Leave to amend imputations 7(a), 9(a) granted; DECISION : 2. Plaintiff to elect between 5(a) and 5(c); 3. Imputations 5(e), 7(a), 7(b), 7(c), 7(d), 7(e), 7(f), 9(c), 9(d) are struck out.

CATCHWORDS : DEFAMATION - capacity to convey imputations - consecutive radio broadcasts - spearate publications - differ in substance

CATEGORY : Procedural and other rulings

Gary BURNS (plaintiff) PARTIES : HARBOUR RADIO PTY LTD (first defendant) Ray HADLEY (second defendant)

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 2008/20380

COUNSEL : M Richardson (plaintiff) ATS Dawson (first & second defendants)

SOLICITORS : Johnson Winter & Slattery (plaintiff) Banki Haddock Fiora (first & second defendants)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION

SIMPSON J

Thursday 27 November 2008.

2008/20380 Gary BURNS v HARBOUR RADIO PTY LTD & Anor

JUDGMENT 1 HER HONOUR: By statement of claim filed on 29 August 2008 the plaintiff, Gary Burns, claims damages for what he alleges were imputations defamatory of him published by the defendants in three consecutive radio broadcasts, on 15, 16 and 17 June 2008. He has identified the imputations he claims were conveyed by each individual broadcast, and were defamatory of him. 2 The defendants have made certain challenges to the statement of claim. Their principal contention relates to the capacity of the broadcasts to convey the imputations pleaded, but there were also some subsidiary, or alternative, challenges. 3 Although all broadcasts were clearly part of a sequence, the plaintiff has chosen to plead them as individual publications, and the capacity of each to convey the imputations said to have been conveyed by each must therefore be determined by examining each broadcast in isolation from the others.