#6692 - Riches V. News Group Newspapers - Commercial Remedies BCL

Riches v. News Group Newspapers

Facts

The defendants are the proprietors and publishers of the "News of the World," a national newspaper with a very large circulation in England and Wales. They appeal against a jury's award of exemplary damages amounting to 250,000, which they were ordered to pay to 10 police officers by Comyn J. on 9 February 1984 for libel contained in an article which they published in every edition of their newspaper on 16 July 1978.

The police officers' action took a long time to come to trial, largely through an unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of their solicitors and through no fault of the defendants or their advisers. It originated in a letter to the defendants, written on his behalf and signed by one David John Brain of his own free will according to its postscript, and received by them as long ago as 12 July 1978. The letter stated that he was the father of the missing child Mark Brain (who had been taken from his mother's home in Oxford) and pleaded with the defendants to help them in a case where he was being accused and charged with offences against his wife; offences of raping and badly treating his wife which had, he alleged, been committed by the Banbury C.I.D.; that strong evidence against Banbury C.I.D. had gone missing, apparently because of a sexual approach by a detective whom he named, and that his wife was too terrified to give evidence against certain C.I.D. officers of Banbury. He said that the newspapers and A10 (Scotland Yard's Police Discipline Department) were the only ones that could help and prove his innocence and on the sixth page of what was a rather rambling letter he said he would get in touch with the defendants once his story had been printed and would give the address of Mark and himself and the names of the witnesses.

It made copious extracts from the letter, including its allegations against the Banbury C.I.D., but omitted the name of the officer mentioned in the letter. It ended with quotations from what the reporter had been told by Mr. Colin Smith, assistant chief constable of Thames Valley Police - that Brain's words kept changing from relatively calm to quite agitated and the police were "making a thorough investigation of the allegations in the letter sent to the 'News of the World.'" The article was not advertised by placard or poster or on television, but it appeared on the front page of every copy in every edition under the heading in very large heavy type: "Exclusive: Siege man tells us why he did it."

Claimant’s allegation:

“The plaintiffs hereby give notice that at the trial of this action they will invite the court to award exemplary damages on the basis that the defendants published the words complained of with guilty knowledge, in the sense that they were obviously defamatory on their face, for the motive that the chances of economic advantage outweighed the chances of economic penalty.”

Question

Whether, if there was evidence of a case for exemplary damages for the judge to leave to the jury, he misdirected the jury in summing up the issue of exemplary damages.

Holding

Summary of the Principles

(a) Exemplary damages can only be awarded if the plaintiff proves that the defendant when he made the publication knew that he was committing a tort or was reckless whether his action was tortious or not, and decided to publish because the prospects of material advantage outweighed the prospects of material loss. 'What is necessary is that the tortious act must be done with guilty knowledge for the motive that the chances of economic advantage outweigh the chances of economic, or perhaps physical, penalty.'

(b) The mere fact that a libel is committed in the course of a business carried on for profit, for example the business of a newspaper publisher, is not by itself sufficient to justify an award of exemplary damages.

(c) If the case is one where exemplary damages can be awarded the court or jury should consider whether the sum which it proposes to award by way of compensatory damages is sufficient not only for the purpose of compensating the plaintiff but also for the purpose of punishing the defendant. It is only if the sum proposed by way of compensatory damages (which may include an element of aggravated damages) is insufficient that the court or jury should add to it enough 'to bring it up to a sum sufficient as punishment.'

(d) The sum awarded as damages should be a single sum which will include, where appropriate, any elements of aggravated or exemplary damages.

(e) The plaintiff can only recover exemplary damages if he is the victim of the punishable behaviour.

(f) A jury should be warned of the danger of an excessive award.

(g) The means of the parties, though irrelevant to the issue of compensatory damages, can be taken into account in awarding exemplary damages.

(h) Where a number of persons are sued the question of exemplary damages has to be considered by reference to the least guilty of the defendants.

Multiple Claimants

Mr. Alexander's novel point, which I have numbered 7, is a point on which there is admittedly no authority. The only reported cases of awards of exemplary damages to more than one plaintiff are White v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, The Times, 24 April 1982, where Mars-Jones J. awarded 20,000 exemplary damages under Lord Devlin's first category to each of two plaintiffs, man and wife, for false imprisonment, assault and malicious prosecution by several police officers; and Guppys (Bridport) Ltd. v. Brookling (1983) 269 E.G. 846, where this court upheld on appeal from a county court two awards of 2,000 in favour of each of two tenants against their common landlords, each sum being a single sum to include exemplary damages. But the point does not appear to have been taken in either case according to the reports of them or according to my imperfect recollection of the latter case. However, once it is taken it seems to me to be right beyond argument. A defendant in a civil case may deserve to be punished more heavily for libelling two or ten plaintiffs than for libelling one, just as the defendant in a criminal case may merit more severe punishment if guilty on more than one count of an indictment. But although a defendant convicted of more than one offence may receive consecutive or concurrent sentences, yet it is the total amount of the punishment which has to be fair and not excessive; so it is the total amount of any increase of damages for punishment which must not be unreasonable and excessive for the purpose of expressing disapproval of a tortious defendant's conduct and deterring him from repeating it. In this case it was common ground that there was no difference between the 10 plaintiffs and that each should be awarded the same sum, as the judge...