Campbell v Regional Publishers Pty Ltd

[2000] NSWSC 104

CITATION:	Campbell v Regional Publishers Pty Ltd [2000] NSWSC 104
CURRENT JURISDICTION:	Common Law
FILE NUMBER(S):	SC 20916/97
HEARING DATE(S):	16 April 1999
JUDGMENT DATE:	2 March 2000
PARTIES :	Margaret Campbell - Plaintiff Regional Publishers Pty Ltd - Defendant
JUDGMENT OF:	Simpson J

COUNSEL :	M Rollinson - Plaintiff T D Blackburn - Defendant
SOLICITORS:	Daly Bussoletti & Co - Plaintiff Gilbert & Tobin - Defendant
CASES CITED:	Amalgamated Television Services Pty Ltd v Marsden (1998) 43 NSWLR 158
DECISION:	Order that imputations pleaded in paragraphs 3(b) - (e) and 6(a) - (d) be struck out.

THE SUPREME COURT
OF NEW SOUTH WALES
COMMON LAW DIVISION

SIMPSON J

2 March 2000

20916/97

Margaret CAMPBELL v REGIONAL PUBLISHERS

Judgment

HER HONOUR :

1    The plaintiff, Margaret Campbell, sues the defendant, Regional Publishers Pty Ltd, the publisher of the Macleay Argus, a newspaper which apparently circulates in the Kempsey area in NSW. The plaintiff claims that two articles published respectively on 1 February 1992 and 6 February 1992 contained imputations which defamed her. The defendant challenges the capacity of either publication to convey any except one of the imputations pleaded.

2    Photocopies of the two articles are appended to the statement of claim. Although they cannot be seen in the context of the whole of the newspaper in which they were contained, they appear to be published as new items. Their subject matter is reported ongoing disputes and disturbances at a local Aboriginal child care centre called the Ngaku Multi Purpose Child Care Centre.

3    In the first item, reference was made to graffiti, vandalism, breaking into and entry of, and even bombing of the Centre, and threatening telephone calls made to the administrator. The administrator, who was identified as Ms Andrea Douglas, was extensively quoted both directly and indirectly. She was reported as having called a public meeting of Aboriginal groups and the “white hierarchy” of the town to expose “racism, ignorance and the disgusting acts on the Centre”. It is convenient to extract some paragraphs from the report:

“Mrs Douglas, 44, said she believed the attacks on the centre were directed at her because she was perceived as an ‘uptown nigger’ because of her job and education, and a police informer.
The Aboriginal community had not liked it when she was called in to audit the centre’s books after the former administrator allegedly misappropriated funds, or because other members of her family had been employed at the centre.
‘If they think by destroying the centre they’re destroying me, they’re not. They’re just making the white people in this town richer,’ she said.
‘I got myself where I am and they’re not going to pull me down.’”

4    A little later a local police officer was quoted as saying that he did not know who was responsible for the incidents at the Centre, but that it may have been juveniles, and that he did not think that the bombing was connected to the other trouble at the Centre.

5    The plaintiff is nowhere named in this news item. However she was and was known to be the former administrator of the Centre, and the defendant accordingly acknowledged that the passage extracted above would be taken by reasonable readers to refer to her.

6    The plaintiff pleads that this article, in its natural and ordinary meaning, conveys five imputations defamatory of her. She pleads them as follows:

“3 (a) The Plaintiff misappropriated funds.
(b) The Plaintiff bombed the Ngaku Centre.
(c) The Plaintiff vandalised the Ngaku Centre.
(d) The Plaintiff broke into the Ngaku Centre.
(e) The Plaintiff made threatening phone calls to Andrea Douglas.”

7    She further alleges that the item conveyed the same five imputations, plus a sixth, to readers with knowledge of certain extrinsic facts. The sixth imputation alleged to have been conveyed to such readers was framed as follows:

“(f) The Plaintiff made a graffiti attack on the Ngaku Centre.”

8    The extrinsic facts pleaded are the following:

“(a) The Plaintiff was the former administrator of the Ngaku Centre.
(b) The Plaintiff was a member of the Kempsey Aboriginal community.
(c) Andrea Douglas is an Aboriginal.
(d) Andrea Douglas was appointed administrator of the Ngaku Centre after the administration of the plaintiff.
(e) Andrea Douglas criticised the administration of the plaintiff.
(f) The plaintiff and her family were not on good terms with Andrea Douglas and her family”.

9    The second publication appeared five days later. It reported a bomb explosion at Ms Douglas’ home. Police were reported as expressing the view that the bombing may have been related to the bombing of the Centre, and of RTA offices the previous year, and that it might also have been related “to a feud between two Aboriginal families”. Again, the plaintiff is not named in this item, nor is she referred to by reference to her position as the former administrator of the Centre as was the case in the first article. The plaintiff claims this publication in its natural and ordinary meaning conveyed four imputations defamatory of her. They are pleaded as follows:

6(a) The Plaintiff bombed the home of Andrea Douglas.
(b) The Plaintiff bombed the Ngaku Centre.

(c) The Plaintiff vandalised the Ngaku Centre.

(d) The Plaintiff broke into the Ngaku Centre.”

10    Additionally, she pleads that, by reason of extrinsic facts (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) pleaded in relation to the first publication, and known to some readers, the imputations were conveyed as true innuendos.

11    The defendant does not argue that imputation 3(a) is incapable of being conveyed in the natural and ordinary meaning of the first publication, but argues that none of the other pleaded imputations is capable of being so conveyed and that, even assuming proof of the extrinsic facts upon which the plaintiff proposes to rely, they are not capable of being conveyed to readers in possession of knowledge of those facts.

12    There are, therefore, four matters to consider:

(a) whether the first publication in its natural and ordinary meaning is capable of conveying any or all of the imputations pleaded;

(b) whether the first publication is capable of conveying to readers with knowledge of the extrinsic facts pleaded any or all of the imputations pleaded;

(c) whether the second publication in its natural and ordinary meaning is capable of conveying any or all of the imputations pleaded;

(d) whether the second publication is capable of conveying to readers with knowledge of the extrinsic facts pleaded any or all of the imputations pleaded.

the first publication: natural and ordinary meaning

13    As I have noted above the plaintiff was not named in the publication. She was identified by reference to her position as the former administrator of the Centre. If the plaintiff is to succeed in establishing that in its natural and ordinary meaning the article conveys any of the imputations pleaded other than the first, she must show that, within the article itself, there is something that links the various forms of behaviour alleged to her as the former administrator. There is no such link. Indeed, the clear suggestions within the terms of the publication point the other way. Ms Douglas is reported to have said that “the Aboriginal community” had been dissatisfied with her appointment, after the “former administrator”, the plaintiff, had allegedly misappropriated funds, but this suggests that others in the Aboriginal community, not the plaintiff, bore the grudge. A police officer was reported as suggesting that the incidents may have been the work of “juveniles”, and that the bombing was probably unrelated to the “other trouble” at the Centre, the suggestion being that it was associated with bombings in other parts of the town bearing no apparent relationship (so far as the report went) to the Centre.

14    The test of the capacity of the matter complained of to convey defamatory imputations is, above all, a test of what an ordinary reader might reasonably infer from the plain words of the publication. I am satisfied that no ordinary reader would reasonably infer, from the words published, that the plaintiff had bombed, vandalised or broken into the Ngaku Centre, or had made threatening phone calls to Ms Douglas. The imputations, pleaded as arising in the natural and ordinary meaning of the matter complained of, will be struck out.

the first publication: true innuendo

15    It is then necessary to consider whether the same imputations plus the sixth are capable of being conveyed to readers with knowledge of the extrinsic facts pleaded. For the purpose of this exercise it is necessary to assume that the extrinsic facts pleaded can be proved to have been known to at least one reader. Properly analysed, the most the extrinsic facts can do is point to a basis on which the plaintiff might harbour some hostility towards Ms Douglas. To leap from an inference that the plaintiff did harbour such hostility to a further inference that she was responsible for any or all of the acts mentioned in the news item would involve speculation of the most unjustifiable kind and quite unwarranted in logic. Even if some readers made that leap, it is not a leap for which the defendant can be held responsible. It only takes a moment’s thought to appreciate the consequence to publishers and broadcasters of (and the public who have an interest in) news if those publishers could be held liable for the unjustified conclusions that might be drawn by recipients who add something of their own to what is published and draw an unreasonable but defamatory inference. A newspaper, for example, could never publish a report of a murder because somewhere, somebody might know a person who had a motive to murder the victim, inject that knowledge into the publication, and draw an inference that that person was the murderer. This is something for which the publisher cannot be held responsible. To hold that a publisher might be liable for making that sort of a connection would be unreasonable in the sense discussed by Hunt CJ at CL in Amalgamated Television Services Pty Ltd v Marsden (1998) 43 NSWLR 158. On no view of the present publication could it be said that anything the defendant published, even taken together with the pleaded extrinsic facts, suggested that it was the plaintiff who engaged in any or all of the acts described in the publication. All imputations pleaded as arising from the first publication, other than the first, will be struck out.

the second publication: natural and ordinary meaning

16    Once again, the plaintiff was not named in the publication, and, in this case, neither was she referred to by her title or former position. There is simply not a word in the report that could, even remotely, attribute responsibility for the bombings, vandalism or break and entry to the plaintiff. The publication is incapable of conveying the defamatory imputations in its natural and ordinary meaning.

the second publication: true innuendo

17    This exercise is no different to that involved in relation to the first publication. For the same reasons that the previous imputations were struck out, so must the imputations alleged to have been conveyed by the second publication.

18    I order that the imputations pleaded in paragraphs 3(b)-(e) and 6(a)-(d) be struck out.

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Last Modified: 09/25/2000