Mahmoud v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (No 3) [2017] NSWSC 764

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Mahmoud v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (No 3) [2017] NSWSC 764 Hearing dates: 9 June 2017 Decision date: 09 June 2017 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: McCallum J Decision: Proceedings dismissed Catchwords: DEFAMATION – application by defendant to have proceedings summarily dismissed – where plaintiff a vexatious litigant – article published before that determination was made by the court – where headline wrongly stated that the plaintiff had been declared a vexatious litigant – vexatious proceedings order later made and upheld on appeal – whether defamation action by vexatious litigant based on imputation of vexatiousness vexatious Legislation Cited: Defamation List Practice Note SC CL 4, cl 13(b) Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), r 13.4 Vexatious Proceedings Act 2008 (NSW) Cases Cited: Attorney General for the State of New South Wales v Mahmoud [2015] NSWSC 899 Dow Jones and Co Inc v Gutnick [2002] HCA 56 Mahmoud v Attorney General of New South Wales [2017] NSWCA 12 Mahmoud v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2017] NSWSC 85 Mahmoud v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (No 2) [2017] NSWSC 763 O'Shane v Harbour Radio Pty Ltd [2013] NSWCA 315 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Tosson Hussein Mahmoud (plaintiff) Australian Broadcasting Corporation (first defendant) Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd (third defendant) Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd (eighth defendant) Claire Aird (second respondent to notice of motion) Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd (third defendant) PT. Kompas Cyber Media (fourth defendant) Security Business Bank of Sand Diego (fifth defendant) Facebook, Inc. (sixth defendant) Facebook Australia (seventh defendant) Yahoo!7 Pty Ltd (eighth defendant) Google Australia Pty Ltd (ninth defendant) Yahoo! Inc. (tenth defendant) Yahoo!7 Pty Limited (eleventh defendant) Twitter Inc. (twelfth defendant) YouTube, LLC (thirteenth defendant) Veooz.com (fourteenth defendant) Abix (fifteenth defendant) ANTARA (sixteenth defendant) Bakrie & Brothers Corporation (seventeenth defendant) CT Corp (eighteenth defendant) Emtek (nineteenth defendant) PT Komopas Gramedia Group (twentieth defendant) PT. Niskala Media Tenggara Company (twenty-first defendant) Media Antarkota Jaya, PT (twenty-second defendant) Sharp Corporation Headquarters (twenty-third defendant) Media Troup (twenty-fourth defendant) The MNC Media Group (twenty-fifth defendant) The Tempo Media Group (twenty-sixth defendant) Abdurizal Bakrie's Visi Asia Media Group (twenty-seventh defendant) BBC Indonesia (twenty-eighth defendant) The British Broadcasting Commission (twenty-ninth defendant) Fairfax Digital Australia & New Zealand Pty Ltd (thirtieth defendant) Representation: Counsel: Plaintiff self-represented L Barnett (first, second and eleventh defendants to amended statement of claim) L Norman, solicitor (third and thirtieth defendants to amended statement of claim)