Court ruling in JK Rowling Libel Case Challenged

Associated Newspapers has appealed against the ruling made in 2013 in a libel case brought forth by J.K. Rowling. Ms. Rowling brought forth the suit after the Daily Mail published an article with the title “How JK Rowling’s sob story about her past as a single mother has left the churchgoers who cared for her upset and bewildered.” As a part of court proceedings, Ms. Rowling was allowed to read a unilateral statement in open court. The court ruled that a monetary compensation, of an amount agreed upon by both parties, was to be paid (which Ms. Rowling promptly donated to charity), and a formal apology was to be published. Both forms of compensation were performed, and Ms. Rowling accepted the apology in January 2014.   Associated Newspapers does not dispute that Ms. Rowling was entitled to make her statement in open court, nor does it dispute the proper compensations which it has put forth. The Associated Newspapers object to a number of terms and conditions in the proposed statement. The Irish Examiner reports:

Associated’s counsel, Andrew Caldecott QC, told Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Ryder and Lady Justice Sharp that Mr Justice Tugendhat’s ruling, in April last year, was a “most unsatisfactory precedent” and one, which if generally followed, would create difficulties for the offer of amends regime. Mr Caldecott said: “Although this appeal raises important issues, it in no way seeks to dilute or qualify the published apologies to Ms Rowling which she was properly and rightly entitled to.”

Mr Caldecott said that the whole purpose of a statement in open court was to attract wide publicity, which made it the more important that the statement was confined to, and accurately reflected, the pleaded claim.

Justin Rushbrooke QC, for Rowling, said that the appeal did not, as claimed, raise any important issue of principle or practice in defamation law, but was plainly misconceived and an “exercise in nit-picking”.

He said that only rarely should a defendant be permitted to dictate to a claimant what she was permitted to say in a statement in open court.

It was primarily a matter between the court and the party wishing to make a statement, and the proper arbiter of what was acceptable in a unilateral statement was the judge.   The judges are expected to reserve their decision to a later date.