Hayson v Nationwide News Pty Limited

The applicants in this case, Mr Hayson and Ms De Iuliis, brought an action for defamation against the respondents, Nationwide News and two of its journalists. The applicants sought damages for an article published by the respondents which they claimed had defamed them. The matter was heard in the Federal Court of Australia. The respondents sought an interlocutory application for the applicants to include additional material in their statement of claim. The respondents argued that the article in question was part of a series of articles which should be considered as a whole.

The court was required to decide whether the additional article was part of the material sued upon and whether it was necessary to include it in the statement of claim. The court considered the legal principles relating to the definition of a defamatory publication and the relevance of additional material in a defamation case. The court noted that the additional article could reasonably be read as separate and distinct from the article in question and that the threshold for including additional material had not been met.

Based on its reasoning, the court dismissed the respondents’ interlocutory application. The court held that the additional article could be read as separate and distinct from the article in question and that there was no necessity to include it in the statement of claim. The court also noted that the respondents had not provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the additional article was part of the material sued upon. The court ordered that the respondents pay the applicants’ costs of and incidental to the interlocutory application as assessed or agreed. The entry of orders was dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.