High Quality Jewellers Pty Ltd (ACN 119 428 394) v Ramaihi (Ruling)

The case involved High Quality Jewellers Pty Ltd, Elvi Harris, and Marc Salzmann as plaintiffs, suing Hassan Ramaihi as the defendant, over defamation claims. The plaintiffs sought to adjourn the hearing of the serious harm element to the trial of the proceeding. The court was required to determine whether special circumstances existed to warrant postponing the determination of the serious harm element to the trial. The court also needed to assess the relevance of the defendant's motives, the truth or otherwise of the content of the review, and the element of malice involved in leaving the review in determining whether serious harm had been established.

The court found that the serious harm element is now a part of the tort of defamation, and unless there is serious harm, there is no actionable claim. The burden is on the plaintiffs to establish that the imputations for which they contend caused the necessary harm to their reputations. The court found that the harm to reputation will be harm in the eyes of persons who read the Google review or otherwise become aware of the review through the grapevine effect. The court was not persuaded that the defendant's motives or the truth or otherwise of the content of the review is relevant to an assessment of the harm, nor that the court will inevitably have to make a determination of truth in deciding the serious harm element. The court found that determining the serious harm element prior to trial could result in a significant saving of costs and resources, or could result in no cost or resource saving, but is unlikely to result in a significant additional cost or a significant drain on resources. Consequently, the application to adjourn was dismissed.

The court's final orders were that the application to adjourn the hearing of the serious harm element to the trial of the proceeding was dismissed.