Butler Awarded £2500 Damages For Libel

Press, Volume C, Issue 29466, 18 March 1961, Page 12

Butler Awarded £2500 Damages For Libel

(IV .2. Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 17. After a three-hour retirement the jury tonight awarded Peter Michael Butler £2500 in his Supreme Court libel claim for £4OOO damages against Walter Francis Molineux, secretary of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union, first defendant, and the New’ Zealand Worker Printing and Publishing Company, second defendant. Butler is secretary of the Labourers’ Union. The action arose from the front-page article in the August, 1960, issue of the “New Zealand Building Worker” of which Molineux is editor. The jury found the words complained of were defamatory and not substantially true, that Molineux did not honestly believe them to be true, and that they were not fair comment. The Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowclough) deferred judgment until legal argument is heard. The case lasted five days. More than 100 foolscap pages of evidence were taken.

Mr J. H. Dunn appeared for Butler. Mr C. H. Arndt for Molineux, and Mr N. A. Morrison, with him Mr B. R. Boon, for the publishing company. In evidence today Molineux produced a copy of the minutes of a meeting of the Wellington Trades Council in August last. Mr Dunn: Do you now want to suggest that Butler is a wrecker of the trade union movement? Molineux: I have never suggested it. I consider today Mr Butler is a disruptive element in the trade union movement. Was that the view you had when you wrote the article? When I wrote the article I ■was not concerned with Butler’s attitude to the trade union movement. I was concerned only with wages and conditions of my own members being undermined. You have expressed strong views about libel actions? — Within the trade union movement we don’t think much of them. We think it a poor way of resolving our differences. Did the Carpenters’ Union make a representation to the last conference of the Federation of Labour?—They put forward a remit to get these differences resolved within the organisation. Did you second a recommendation about that?; —Yes. Your view is that people who feel agrieved should take the matter to the Trades Council?—Not necessarily the Trades Council, but settle it within the movement. Why should we air our dirty washing? Right to Take Action His Honour said that whatever the trade union movement might think, if a man was libelled he had the right to come to the Court. His Honour said he could not see that the matter went to the question of malice. Mr Dunn said that if a man who held such views and succeeded in getting a resolution adopted then took punitive action against people and went to Court, then it might well be construed as giving him a licence. Mr Arndt said he objected to the line of questioning as it was not a matter pleaded in the allegations of malice. Re-examined by Mr Arndt, Molineux said he first became a carpenter in 1923 or 1924. He had two periods of absence from the trade, one as a union official, and he was for two years in the Royal Australian Navy and then with the Royal New Zealand Navy during the war years. His Honour said he would reserve decision on a motion by Mr Morrison for the action against the second defendant to be dismissed. It was not a matter which concerned the jury. In his address to the jury Mr Arndt said the claim against Molineux for a verylarge sum was a matter of great importance to him as

it originated an action in the course of his daily duties as a trade union official. Nature of Dispute The action arose out of a humdrum and everyday sort of dispute in the Labour world in which two unions claimed the right to certain work. It ■was the commonest kind of dispute in that sphere. The defendant contended that in the circumstances of the argument the words complained of were not in fact defamatory in that they did not tend to lower the plaintiff in the eyes of rightthinking people in trade union circles. The words used were very different in their effect and implication from what they would be in entirely different circumstances. Strong and sometimes excessively strong language appeared to be the rule in industrial matters. It was not a question of Parliamentary language where words were carefully weighed. Trade union officials were ordinary working men who suddenly became administrators, diplomats and newspaper editors for which they had no training. The defendant’s second defence was that, even if defamatory, the words were substantially true.

Counsel asked the jury to conclude from the evidence that labourers in Auckland w-ere claiming the right to do steel form work. It was clear from the evidence that' Butler “felt spleen” against Molineux from the tone of that section of the Federation of Labour’s report which he wrote and also his letter to the defendant about "deliberate distortion.” said Mr Arndt. Counsel also contended that Butler had been actuated by ambition on behalf of his union, even if it was not improper ambition. Air Arndt said the onus lay l

fairly and squarely on the plaintiff to prove that Molineux had no honest belief in the words of the article at the time he wrote them. It was the duty of the editor of a union journal to inform members of the union about a controversy that affected them. In this case he is a man with no journalistic training in the niceties of language or the law of libel. "Perhaps the warmth and strength of the language in the article showed that he did honestly believe what he wrote.” “Fantastic Theory” Mr Arndt described it as a “fantastic theory” Molineux’s motive in writing the article was to bring about the amalgamation of the Carpenters’ and the Labourers’ unions. There were no particulars of any acts by Molineux that tended to support that allegation. Molineux could scarcely bring that about by vilifying the secretary of the other union. Mr Morrison said it appeared that Butler had, in fact, become “thin-skinned after his years in the trade union movement because it had been shown in the past “he had been able to take it and, if I may complete the phrase, dish it out.” Mr Morrison said the ! damages being . ask ® d „j!?l were far too high. It could be said that by bringing the action Butler had caused more publicity than would otherwise have been the case. Onus of Proof Mr Dunn said the question of whether the words lowered Butler was one for the jury alone to decide, and it did not matter where they were said or written. It should not be difficult to decide whether the words were defamatory. “There are allegations that he would not pull his weight and that he undercuts other workers and sacrifices his workers in pursuance of his own spleen and ambition. If that is not defamatory, I don’t know what is,” said Mr Dunn. “It suggests improper motives and that is dangerous.” Mr Dunn said that if Molineux claimed the article to be true, the onus was on him to prove it. Mr Dunn said that to challenge the defence plea of qualified privilege in publication. Butler had to show evidence of malice on the part of Molineux in writing what he did. There were a number of indications of such malice. For instance. Molineux had no duty to tell his members that Butler had insisted Molineux should address him as “Mister.” The matter was introduced because it had got under Molineux’s skin and he wanted to “take it out on Mr Butler.” The letter Molineux had written to the Trades Council might also be taken as evidence of malice. It was suggested that the dispute should have been settled in the trade union movement. “They think that these matters should be

settled by people's courts, by trades councils that conduct their affairs in the shocking way described here,” said Mr Dunn. His Honour, summing up, said the first question the jury had to decide was whether the words complained of were defamatory in their context. He suggested the main sting of the libel, if it was libel, lay in the heading “Labourers’ Union Under-Cut the Carpenters’ Rate and Smash Job Unity,” a paragraph suggesting trade union officials were prepared to under-cut wages and conditions of other workers, and at the same time “sacrifice their own members’ conditions in pursuance of their personal spleen and ambitions” and a third paragraph. about “Mister” Butler and his colleagues insisting on the right of labourers to do carpenters’ work. His Honour said he had ruled that the words were capable of a defamatory meaning, but it was for the jury to decide if they were actually defamatory in this case. If they found they were, or if some of them were, then they must decide if they were true. The law presumed that defamatory words were untrue, but the defence could plead they were true. The jury must consider if the -defence had discharged this onus. On this there was some confusion and there was some question whether Butler had insisted on the right of labourers to do carpenters’ work. Department’s Report There was no doubt each union wanted to get what was proper for its members. The jury might consider that the Labour Department’s brief report was the best evidence on this as the witnesses were all interested parties. The report suggested that Butler only asked for some of the work, not insisting that all the work be done by labourers. “Was Butler sacrificing the interests of his workers for personal reasons or was he trying to get as much as possible for them?” If the jury decided Molineux was not telling the truth, then they must consider whether defendant had abused his qualified privilege. Plaintiff had to prove malice. There was a great deal of evidence that the secretaries were antagonistic toward each other, but for this purpose it was sufficient to prove that Molineux had been antagonistic toward Butler when he wrote the article. “This claim for £4OOO is properly before you, but it is for you to say to what extent it should be allowed,” said his Honour. “It is to be regretted that men who appear to be leaders in the trade union movement exercise so little restraint. It is a matter the trade union leaders should give consideration to. “You may, however, consider this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It is not for me to say how far this should go, but it is something you can take intq account,” his Honour told the jury.