Nasr v State of New South Wales

[2015] NSWSC 584

Supreme Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	Nasr v State of New South Wales [2015] NSWSC 584
Hearing dates:	1 May 2015
Date of orders:	01 May 2015
Decision date:	01 May 2015
Jurisdiction:	Common Law
Before:	McCallum J
Decision:	Proceedings dismissed with costs.
Catchwords:	PROCEDURE – civil – summary disposal – dismissal – whether reasonable cause of action – where statement of claim does not specify defamatory publication sued on – where statement of claim does not specify imputations – where statement of claim fails to provide particulars LIMITATION OF ACTIONS – claim in defamation – where claim commenced outside ultimate bar – where Court has no power to extend the limitation period
Legislation Cited:	Limitation Act 1969 (NSW), s 56A Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), rr 14.28, 14.30, 15.19
Category:	Procedural and other rulings
Parties:	Nabil Nasr (Plaintiff) State of New South Wales (Defendant)
Representation:	Solicitors: Plaintiff (Self-Represented) McCabes Lawyers (Defendant)
File Number(s):	2015/31652
Publication restriction:	None

Judgment – Ex tempore

1. HER HONOUR: These are proceedings for defamation commenced by Mr Nasr against the State of New South Wales.

2. The defendant moves the Court today for an order dismissing the proceedings under r 14.28 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) on the basis that the amended pleading discloses no reasonable cause of action and otherwise fails to comply with the requirements of the Rules.

3. The acute difficulties of the pleading are, first, that it fails to identify with specificity the allegedly defamatory publication sued on; it also fails to specify the imputations sued on, contrary to the requirements of r 14.30. Otherwise, the pleading fails to provide the particulars required by r 15.19.

4. Upon hearing Mr Nasr's submissions in respect of the application today, I now understand that the publication sought to be sued on is a statement allegedly made by police in May 2009. Mr Nasr alleges that police said to approximately one hundred passengers at the airport:

“These people are crooks. Your tickets are fraud".

5. Those words, if said, would plainly have been defamatory of the people referred to, subject to any defences that could be established. However, the principal difficulty for the plaintiff at this point is the statute of limitations.

6. Section 56A of the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) provides that the Court may not order the extension of the limitation period for a cause of action for defamation other than in the circumstances specified in subsection 2. Subsection 2 imposes an ultimate bar of three years.

7. Mr Nasr complains, with a degree of emotion, that he only received documents relating to his proposed cause of action in November 2014, under a Freedom of Information application. There are two difficulties with that contention. The first is that Mr Nasr appears to have known well before that date of the publication made in May 2009. More importantly, even if a compelling reason were established for extending the limitation period in accordance with the Act, the Court simply does not have power to extend that period for more than three years.

8. It follows that, on any analysis, the proposed cause of action, as it has been explained by Mr Nasr this morning, is statute-barred and that there is no power to do anything about that.

9. For that reason, and for the reasons expanded upon in submissions by Mr Thompson concerning the current state of the pleading, it is inevitable, in my view, that the proceedings must be dismissed with costs. I so order.

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Decision last updated: 18 May 2015