Tu v Chang (No. 2)

The case of Tu v Chang (No. 2) involved a dispute concerning defamation. The plaintiff, Tu, sought to hold the defendants, Chang, liable for defamatory statements made about the plaintiff. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The crux of the dispute centred on the defendants' attempts to justify one of the defamatory imputations, specifically imputation 3(e), but despite multiple attempts, their particulars were found to be deficient.

The court had to determine whether the defence of justification should be struck out due to the inadequacy of the particulars provided by the defendants. Additionally, the court considered whether leave should be granted to the defendants to amend their pleadings to address the deficiencies. The court examined the defendants' three successive attempts to plead justification for imputation 3(e), all of which were deemed inadequate. The court held that the defence of justification was insufficiently particularised, leading to the conclusion that the defence should be struck out.

The court struck out the defence of justification to imputation 3(e) without granting leave to amend. The defendants were required to delete the defence of justification to imputation 3(e) from their amended defence within seven days and were also ordered to pay the plaintiff's costs of and incidental to this application on an indemnity basis. The defendants were further required to categorise their discovery documents by a specified date. The matter was stood over to the Defamation List for a later date to continue the proceedings.