What Is Defamation

1
What Is Defamation?

• Phil OSullivan

2
What is Defamation?

• Is this man ugly?
• Is he hideous-looking?

3
What Is Defamation?

• Can this woman say Steven Berkoff is ugly?
• Can she say he is hideous-looking?

4
What Is Defamation?

• Julie Burchill Journalist, writer, critic.
• highest paid female journalist in Britain.
• Britains worst mother The Daily News

5
What Is Defamation?

• Julie Burchill is First Defendant.
• Times Newspapers, publishers of the Sunday Times
  is Second Defendant

6
What is Defamation?

• Steven Berkoff Plaintiff
• actor, director writer
• appears on stage, screen and television

7
What is Defamation?

• What Julie Burchill said
• film directors from Hitchcock to Berkoff are
  hideous-looking people
• from a review of the film The Age of Innocence
  in the Sunday Times, January 30th, 1994

8
What Is Defamation?

• Julie Burchill again reviewing the film The
  Creature she writes of the main characters
  appearance
• The Creature is made as a vassal for Waldmans
  brain, and rejected in disgust when it comes out
  scarred and primeval. Its a new look for the
  Creature - no bolts in the neck or flat-top
  hairdo- and I think it works its a lot like
  Stephen Berkoff. Only marginally better looking.
• Sunday Times, November 6th, 1994

9
What Is Defamation?

• Berkoffs Primary Submission
• It is defamatory to call a person hideously
  ugly
• Would tend to expose him to ridicule

10
What is Defamation?

• Berkiffs Secondary Submission
• Burchills description would cause other people
  to shun or avoid Mr. Berkoff

11
What Is Defamation?

• Classic Definition of Defamation
• A publication without justification or lawful
  excuse which is calculated to injure the
  reputation or another by exposing him to hatred,
  contempt or ridicule
• Parmiter v. Coupland, 1840

12
What Is Defamation?

• Definition broadened in 1934
• if it tends to make the plaintiff be shunned or
  avoided and that without any moral discredit on
  (the plaintiffs) part.
• Youssoupoff v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Ltd.

13
What Is Defamation?

• Definition broadened in 1936..
• would the words tend to lower the plaintiff in
  the estimation of right-thinking members of
  society generally.
• Sim V. Stretch, 1936

14
What Is Defamation?

• Recommendation
• publication which in all the circumstances
  would be likely to affect a person adversely in
  the estimation of reasonable people generally.
• Foulkes Committee Report of the Committee on
  Defamation

15
What is Defamation?

• The exact borderline may be difficult to
  define.
• Neill, LJ, All England Law Reports

16
What is Defamation?

• Steven Berkoff
• How do Julie Burchills comments affect him?

17
What Is Defamation?

• Steven Berkoff
• Has his reputation been injured?

18
What Is Defamation?

• Defendants Counsel
• defamation law is undermined when
• ..exhibitions of bad manners or discourtesy are
  placed on the same level as attacks on character,
  and are treated as actionable wrongs.

19
What Is Defamation?

• In other words
• Steven Berkoffs hurt feelings and annoyance are
  irrelevant to the question of whether the
  statements were defamatory.

20
What is Defamation?

• Berkoffs Counsel
• agreed Burchills statements were not an attack
  on reputation in the conventional sense
• But Berkoffs standing should be considered.
• How would comments be seen when judged by
  theatre-goers and casting directors.

21
What Is Defamation?

• What Is Reputation?
• Will the comments affect in an adverse manner the
  attitude of other people towards him?
• Will the comments affect his livelihood?

22
What Is Defamation?

• the worlds must be judged in the context in
  which they were published.
• how would they be understood?
• not necessarily how they were meant

23
What Is Defamation?

• is it defamatory to say a man is hideously
  ugly?
• does it matter if he is an actor, a director or a
  writer?

24
What Is Defamation?

• Judgment
• ...it is likely to lead ordinary people to shun
  the plaintiff, despite the fact that being
  hideously ugly is no reflection on a persons
  character or good reputation to call a person
  hideously ugly is defamatory.

25
What Is Defamation?

• I have no doubt that the words complained of
  were intended to ridicule Mr. Berkoff, but I do
  not think that they made him look ridiculous or
  lowered his reputation in the eyes of ordinary
  people.
• The Lone Dissenter, Millet, LJ

26
The End