Matchett v. Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd

The defendants in this case, Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd and Michael Ware, sought to have certain imputations from the plaintiff's Statement of Claim struck out. The plaintiff, Ruth Lewin Matchett, is suing the defendants over an article published in the Courier Mail on September 16, 1997, which she claims defames her by implying she was responsible for abandoning the duty to protect children. The article, titled "Child Sex Abuse Claims Ignored", includes a police report that criticises the plaintiff's directive, and quotes from a ministerial briefing paper. The plaintiff has alleged that five specific imputations arise from the article, including that she was instrumental in abandoning the duty to protect children and was responsible for a gross abdication of the department's duty to safeguard children.

The legal issues before the court were whether the imputations pleaded in the Statement of Claim had the potential to prejudice or delay the fair trial of the proceeding, and whether they disclosed a cause of action. The defendants argued that the imputations did not disclose a cause of action because the defamatory meaning was incapable of arising from the way in which the imputations were pleaded, and that they were insufficiently precise for the defendants to properly plead defences to them. The court considered the relevant legal principles and the arguments of both parties before making a decision.

The court found that each of the defamatory imputations in this case was clearly conveyed by the words used in the article. For example, the imputation that the plaintiff was responsible for a gross abdication of the department's duty to safeguard children was clearly defamatory and the words used in the article. The court also found that although the imputations covered a broadly similar subject matter, each of them was specifically different and referred to a different part of the article. Therefore, the court refused the application to strike out the imputations.

In addition to refusing the application to strike out, the court ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiff's costs of and incidental to the application, and directed the parties to file and serve any amended defence and reply within specific timeframes. The court also directed the parties to deliver a mediation order setting out the particulars of a mediation order, or bring the matter on for further mention to direct the terms in which a mediation should take place.