Erglis v Buckley

[2003] QSC 394

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Erglis v Buckley & Ors [2003] QSC 394

PARTIES:

Erglis
(plaintiff / respondent)
v
Buckley & Ors
(defendants / applicants)

FILE NO/S:

SC No 2867 of 2002

DIVISION:

Trial Division

PROCEEDING:

Application

ORIGINATING COURT:

Supreme Court

DELIVERED ON:

 11 November 2003

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

5, 6 November 2003

JUDGE:

Philippides J

ORDER:

The application for summary judgement is dismissed

COUNSEL:

R V Hanson QC with P A Freeburn for the applicants

P J Favell with R J Anderson for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Crown Law for the applicants

Messrs Drakopoulos Black for the respondent

HILIPPIDES J:P 

The application for summary judgment

1. The plaintiff brings an action for defamation against the defendants.  The plaintiff was employed as a nurse in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (Ward 9D) of the Royal Brisbane Hospital during 1989 to 2001.  The twelfth defendant owned and operated the hospital and the other defendants (“the nursing defendants”) were nursing staff who worked in Ward 9D as employees of the twelfth defendant.

1. The plaintiff bases her claim on the publication of a letter dated 5 December 2001, signed by the nursing defendants and addressed to the Minister for Health, the Honourable Wendy Edmond, on Queensland Health letterhead, which it is alleged contained defamatory imputations concerning the plaintiff.  It is common ground that the letter was sent by facsimile to the Minister on 5 December 2001 and was read and tabled by the Minister on that day during a debate about Ward 9D.  The plaintiff relies on the publication of the letter to various persons prior to its being tabled and the publication of a similar document[1] overa period of several weeks thereafter.  The twelfth defendant is sued on the basis of vicarious liability.

   [1]Although the allegations in the amended Statement of Claim in its present form are based on the document subsequently published being the same, counsel for the plaintiff indicated that the pleading requires further amendment, because it will be alleged that the document left in the ward was in fact another document in similar form to that sent to the Minister.

1. The defendants admit most of the defamatory imputations, but raise a number of defences of qualified privilege pursuant to s 16 of the Defamation Act 1889. Shortly before the trial of the action was due to be heard, the defendants obtained leave to amend their defence to plead that the plaintiff’s action was not maintainable because of the application of the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001 (“the Act”).

1. The defendants now bring an application for summary judgment pursuant to rule 293 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules (“UCPR”), seeking an order that the plaintiff’s action be struck out “on the grounds that litigation of the claim will impeach or question the freedom of speech, debates and/or proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, contrary to sections 8 and 9 of the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001”. [2] 

   [2]It was accepted for the purposes of the present application…