Cronau v Nelson (No 3) [2018] NSWSC 2019

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Cronau v Nelson (No 3) [2018] NSWSC 2019 Hearing dates: 14 December 2018 Decision date: 14 December 2018 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: McCallum J Decision: I direct the plaintiff to provide an affidavit sworn by each of the persons nominated in the letter from O'Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors dated 13 December 2018 explaining the circumstances in which he or she read each matter complained of, such affidavit to be kept confidential to the defendant's legal advisors until further order and to be served by 30 January 2019.

I stand proceedings over to 22 February 2019 at 9.30 am for directions. Catchwords: DEFAMATION – publication – threshold of seriousness – proportionality – plaintiff suing on Facebook posts – where claim as originally pleaded rested on unlikely inference that posts were downloaded by at least one reader – plaintiff subsequently providing particulars asserting that the same three people read each of six matters complained of on the same date – appropriateness of requiring affidavits explaining circumstances in which that occurred Legislation Cited: Civil Procedure Act, s 65 Cases Cited: Bleyer v Google [2014] NSWSC 897 Cronau v Nelson (No 2) [2018] NSWSC 1905 Kostov v Nationwide News Pty Ltd [2018] NSWSC 858 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Christine Cronau (plaintiff) Elizabeth Nelson (defendant) Representation: Counsel: A Munro (plaintiff) H Elachkar

Solicitors: O'Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors (plaintiff) Slade Waterhouse Lawyers (defendant) File Number(s): 2018/42850 Publication restriction: None