Overview On 5 April 2023, Bruce Lehrmann, the well renowned liberal staffer fired the first shot in legal proceedings once again. This time, at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), over its publication of a speech given by Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame to the National Press Club on 9 February 2022. Lehrmann has filed defamation proceedings in the Federal Court, alleging that the ABC had defamed him by publishing the speech.   The Proceedings This is of particular interest following the Australian Capital Territory’s director of public prosecutions’ decision to discontinue the ..read more

The Daily Mail has been successful in appealing an earlier decision of Justice Bromwich, in the Federal Court case of Dailymail.com Australia Pty Ltd v Erin Molan [2023] FCAFC 26. The appeal follows the earlier judgment in Molan v Dailymail.com Australia Pty Ltd [2022] FCA 1004, where the famed television Erin Molan was initially successful in a claim for defamation against the Daily Mail for calling her, amongst other things, a racist. Ms. Molan was awarded $150,000 in damages after Justice Bromwich determined that the most serious imputation, that Ms Molan was a racist, did not carry. The re ..read more

Late in December 2022, in a judgment heard in the District Court of New South Wales, Michael Finch, litigation partner at Rostron Carlyle Rojas Lawyers in Sydney, represented the plaintiff, Matthew Doak, in defamation proceedings against prominent rodeo personality, Joshua Birks. Gibson J awarded almost $300,000 in damages for harm to the reputation of Mr. Doak, as a result of Facebook posts made by Mr. Birks, and subsequent comments by third parties.   Background Mr. Doak and Mr. Birks are both members of the rodeo community. Mr. Birks’ company, Doak Bucking Bulls Pty Ltd, provides minia ..read more

Earlier this month, an American Court delivered its judgement in the enormously publicised defamation case brought by Johnny Depp against his former wife, Amber Heard. The defamation case is undoubtedly one of the most significantly reported and commented upon cases of all time in the field of defamation. The case has been reported, and commented upon, on a global scale and many of the core facts are already well known. This paper provides a summary of the background and an overview of the conduct of the case and the judgments delivered by the jury. It is not an outlandish remark to say that a ..read more

Defamation law has become an increasingly active legal practice area within Australia. Our special counsel, Barrie Goldsmith, has a specific focus on assisting individuals, companies and associations with navigating defamation claims. Barrie’s expertise in the area of defamation law has been recognised by the New York Times as they sought his comments in their recent article about defamation law in Australia and the United States. We link the article, which was published on 12 October 2021 here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/world/australia/facebook-post-missing-apostroph ..read more

The recent majority decision by High Court of Australia case Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller [2021] HCA 27 confirmed the Supreme Court of New South Wales decision on appeal that, when publishing content relating to news stories about Mr Voller, on a respective public Facebook pages, three media organisations were liable for the publication of allegedly defamatory comments that were posted by third-party Facebook users in response to their Facebook publications. The Voller decision found when publishing social media content, the person who published that social media content will al ..read more

From 1 July 2021, the Defamation Act 2005 (Qld) (Act) has been amended to incorporate a number of important changes to the process of pursuing defamation claims including by: introducing a serious harm threshold; making it mandatory to send concern notices; clarifying damages for non-economic losses; and providing additional defences to defamation. In addition to the amendments made to the Act, amendments have also been made to the Limitation of Actions Act 1974 (Qld) making it clear that the 1 year limitation period for bringing defamatory proceedings commences on the date the defamatory ma ..read more

Defamation law is concerned with the damage caused by a publication that puts a person’s reputation or character to question or disrepute in the eyes of the public. How those words which become the subject of examination in defamation matters are interpreted may be different depending on the context of the publication and with who is reading it. For this reason, the court needs to examine each of those words and phrases for their imputation – i.e. what they stand to mean. This article dives into what an imputation is and how the court deals with the determination of an imputation when consider ..read more