Khalil v Nationwide News Pty Limited (No. 2)

In the case of Khalil v Nationwide News Pty Limited (No. 2), the Federal Court was tasked with considering an application for summary dismissal of defamation proceedings brought by the plaintiff against the defendant. The plaintiff alleged defamation arising from two publications by the defendant. The first publication was a news article, and the second was a press release that had been archived by the defendant. The plaintiff contended that both publications were defamatory and sought to establish certain imputations as part of their case.

The central legal issues before the court were whether the first publication was capable of conveying any defamatory imputations and whether the second publication, being archived and accessible only through a search, could be considered as having been published to persons within the plaintiff's camp. The court was required to determine the reasonable capacity of specific imputations to be conveyed and whether certain imputations should be struck out under the relevant rules of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules. Additionally, the court had to consider the form of imputations and the use of certain words in the context of the publications.

The court dismissed the defendant's application for summary dismissal of the proceedings, finding that several of the imputations were reasonably capable of being conveyed. Specifically, the imputations outlined in paragraphs 3(a), 3(d), 3(b), 3(e), 5(a), 5(b), 5(c), 5(d), 5(e), and 5(f) were deemed reasonably capable of being conveyed. Conversely, imputations 3(c) and 3(f) were struck out with leave to replead. The court determined that the second publication, despite being archived, could still be considered published to persons within the plaintiff's camp, and thus not limited to internal use only. The court reserved costs with liberty to apply, indicating that further orders on costs could be made later in the proceedings.