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BreakingNews.ie
6 days ago
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Supreme Court upholds €75,000 award to businessman mistakenly identified as a tax defaulter
The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Iconic Newspapers over an article in one of its publications in which a businessman was incorrectly named as a tax defaulter. In May 2023, a High Court jury awarded William Bird €75,000 after it found the article in the Limerick Leader, published in June 2016, was defamatory. Advertisement Mr Bird, a director of William Bird Limerick Ltd and operator of the Stella Bingo Hall in Shannon Street, Limerick, sued Iconic Newspapers Ltd over an article which outlined tax settlements from a list published by the Revenue Commissioners. It stated: "Funfair/amusement activity operator William Bird, of Henry Street, reached three separate settlements for under-declaration of corporation tax and VAT, under-declaration of PAYE/PRSI and VAT, and under-declaration of corporation tax, in relation to three companies under his name. In total, the monies paid to Revenue in his case amounted to €183,595." However, Mr. Bird, from Castleconnell, had made no such settlements with Revenue. The settlements detailed in the Limerick Leader article had been made by three companies: William Bird (Rollercoaster) Limited, William Bird (Sales) Limited and William Bird Tramore Limited. Mr. Bird had nothing whatsoever to do with any of these three companies. As part of its defence in the High Court, Iconic argued that the publication was covered by qualified privilege, which provides certain protections for a publisher, including that those reading it had a duty or interest in receiving it and that the publisher reasonably believed the receivers of that information had such a duty. Advertisement This issue was dealt with by the judge alone during the High Court hearing, and he rejected Iconic's claim that the article enjoyed qualified privilege. The jury was only asked to decide whether the words complained or referred to Mr Bird. It found it did and awarded him €75,000. Iconic appealed and the Court of Appeal (CoA) last year rejected its appeal. Iconic got a further appeal to the Supreme Court, which was opposed by Mr Bird. Iconic also appealed a CoA decision to overturn a High Court ruling that Mr Bird was only entitled to lower Circuit Court costs as his €75,000 award was €1 below the threshold for High Court cases. Advertisement On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed both appeals. Mr Justice Maurice Collins, on behalf of the five-judge court, said, in his view, no common law qualified privilege defence would be available to Iconic here or a defence under section 18.1 of the Defamation Act 2009 relating to qualified privilege. The focus of Iconic's argument was section 18.2 of the Act, which provides a defence to a defamation action for the defendant to prove a statement was published to those who had a duty to receive or had an interest in receiving the information. It is also a defence if the defendant believed on reasonable grounds it has such a duty or the defendant had a corresponding duty to communicate the information and a corresponding duty to do so. Advertisement The judge said the issue in this appeal was whether section 18(2) of the 2009 Act can and should be interpreted so as to provide a parallel defence for public interest reporting, encompassing publications such as that at issue here and shorn of certain limitations in other parts of the Act dealing with fair and accurate reporting (Section 18.3) and fair and reasonable publication (section 26). Ireland George Gibney to be extradited to Ireland over sex... Read More Had Iconic reported fairly and accurately on the tax defaulters list - something which could not be said to have been either complex or burdensome - its report would have been protected under section 18(3) of the Act, he said. Regrettably, the newspaper article was materially inaccurate insofar as it suggested that Mr Bird was associated with and/or responsible for significant tax defaults by three companies with which he had in fact no connection, he said. The jury took the view that that amounted to a significant defamation of him, as it was clearly entitled to do, he said. The qualified privilege appeal must therefore be dismissed, he said. The judge said the CoA did not err in its decision to award Mr Bird High Court costs.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Supreme Court upholds €75,000 award to businessman mistakenly identified as a tax defaulter
A publisher has lost its Supreme Court appeal over a jury's award of €75,000 damages to a businessman over an article in the Limerick Leader which mistakenly named him as a tax defaulter. The appeal raised important issues concerning the nature and scope of the defence of qualified privilege under the Defamation Act 2009 and the common law. On Thursday, the five-judge court said the defence would only apply to mass media publications in 'exceptional' circumstances, including reports of judicial and parliamentary proceedings, and is limited to 'fair and accurate' reports. None of those circumstances applied to the June 2016 article in the Limerick Leader, published by Iconic Newspapers Ltd, Mr Justice Maurice Collins said when dismissing Iconic's appeal against the €75,000 award made by a High Court jury to William Bird after finding he was defamed in the article. READ MORE After the Court of Appeal dismissed Iconic's appeal against the jury's decision, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a further appeal in relation to the nature and scope of the qualified privilege defence and its relationship to other defences. Iconic had pleaded the words complained of were published on an occasion of qualified privilege. It pleaded that, acting in good faith, it published the article as part of its lawful and legitimate duty to report on matters of public interest, namely settlements made with Revenue. In the Supreme Court judgment, Mr Justice Collins said the context behind the 2009 Act was the need to balance competing constitutional values, the State's ability to vindicate the good names of citizens on the one hand, and the rights of citizens to freely express their convictions and opinions, and the media's liberty of expression, on the other. While qualified privilege can apply across a wide variety of circumstances, it applies to statements made 'in the discharge of some public or private duty', he said. The defence represents a 'delicate and sensitive balance' given the risk of reputational harm that can be caused be honest error, he said. The key concept is reciprocity between the duty and/or interest on the part of the speaker and listener respectively, although some instances of qualified privilege might be difficult to strictly rationalise on that basis. Only in exceptional circumstances will qualified privilege apply to communications to the world at large, he said. Such circumstances included replies to public attack and reports of judicial, parliamentary or other proceedings. In relation to such proceedings, it is not the source, but rather the 'nature' of those, or other matters in which the public is interested, that provides a basis for a defence. The defence of privilege in such circumstances was limited to fair and accurate reports and none of those circumstances applied in the Iconic case. In all jurisdictions other than the US where media publications can enjoy protection from being sued, they are subject to additional conditions beyond the requirement for honest belief/absence of malice, such as requirements the publication was 'reasonable or responsible'. The article in question, in its reference to Mr Bird, was 'materially inaccurate', the judge said. it had wrongly linked him to three companies in the defaulters' list with which he had no association. He was identified in the article as a result of a mistake made by the journalist who wrote it and that mistaken identification involved 'a significant lack of care' Iconic could not avail of qualified privilege in this case and its appeal must be dismissed on that point, he held. Mr Bird, the judge said, was entitled to his costs at High Court level, not at Circuit Court level as the trial judge had ordered. A proper application of the High Court judge's costs discretion would mean observing the €75,000 award was at the boundary of the High Court's jurisdiction and bringing his case in the Circuit Could would have carried a significant risk that Mr Bird would have been under-compensated, he said.
