JOKE COSTS PAPER £25

Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1930, Page 9

JOKE COSTS PAPER £25

LIBIL ACTION IN CIIRIbTcIiURCH. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. A paragraph published in a column under tho heading "Sunspots” was the basis of a libel action in the Magistrate’s Court- to-day. Jean Cunningham, married, claimed £lOO damages from Sun Newspapers, Ltd., and was awarded £25. Counsel for Mrs. Ciinningham said the paragraph had .reference to a party given in honour of plaintiff, whose maiden name and her then name was Chick. In view of her approaching marriage it was a china evening, all the gifts being of china. The paragraph appearing in the column of our was coarse and vulgar” and ridiculed her name. It also contained a nasty and vulgar innuendo. The name Chick had been changed to Cluck, which suggested a broody hen. The whole paragraph was associated with hatching and other ideas relating to poultry, there was no attack on plaintiff's character but she had been hold up to grossest ridicule. Mr. Cunningham, then the. plaintiff’s fiance, had interviewed the editor of the Sun but had obtained no satisfaction, being told the paragraph referred to Miss Cluck, not Miss Chick. No attempt had been made to right the wrong dime. After correspondence between plaintiff’s solicitor and the company’s solicitor an offer had been made of a grudging apology. This had not been satisfactory to plaintiff’. If a free, frank and full apology had been made this would have served.* ** Counsel’s statement was supported by evidence. Tor defendant counsel denied the paragraph was defamatory though it was in his opinion not in the best of taste, ’lhe company, he said, had been willing to publish an apology. He claimed that no ordinary person would see in the paragraph anything more than a harmless joke. The magistrate ruled the paragraph was defamatory and gave judgment for plaintiff for £25.