LIBEL ACTION’S FAILURE

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1935, Page 7

LIBEL ACTION’S FAILURE

MAYORAL ARTICLE CASE CLAIM AGAINST AUCKLAND PAPER MAJORITY VERDICT OF THE JURY. HIS HONOUR’S COMMENTS ON LAW. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. The action in which William McLaren, former president of the Auckland Waterside Workers’ Union, claimed £5OO for alleged libel in the publication Why? rising out of the Auckland mayoral election in May was concluded before Mr. Justice Callan and a jury in the Supreme Court to-day. The defendants, for whom judgment was given, were A. E. Robinson as editor of the publication Farming First Ltd., as proprietors, and the Queen City Press as printers. Messrs. Haigh and Hem, appeared for McLaren, Messrs. Goulding and Sexton conducting the defence. Addressing the jury, Mr. Goulding said the jury must be satisfied that the statements complained of referred to McLaren. The defence was that the article was not defamatory in any part and was not written concerning McLaren. If the jury believed the statements applied to McLaren there was the defence of justification in that the statements were true and a further defence of fair comment could be found.

Newspapers were entitled to criticise men in public office. While comment might be derogatory it did not follow that it might not be fair. Mr. Haigh said no writer could escape judgment for libel because the offence could not be pinned down to particular words or sentences. He suggested that Why? contained a gross libel against Mr. Davis and the article showed the type of man Robinson was in trying to besmirch his opponents, in this case Mr. Davis, a man with. money. Mr. Haigh asked whether the article conveyed to reasonable people the impression that the Labour people were putting forward Mr. Sayegh as candidate for Mayor instead of Mr. H. G. R. Mason so that Mr. Davis could win. That- would be deceiving the rank and file of the party and would mean disloyalty and secret treachery on the part of the leaders, among whom it was contended that McLaren could be placed. Mr. Haigh thought the impression of the article was that of a “sinister conspiracy between Mr. Davis and the Labour leaders,” and to support the suggestion that McLaren was hand in glove with Mr. Davis, the incident regarding the bailing of the men arrested in connection with the free speech council meeting in Beresford Street, Newton, was introduced. “UNCHARITABLE READING.” His Honour said the case was of considerable importance to those concerned. According to authorities a statement was none the less defamatory because it was not intended to be sb. It would be only a careless, perverse Or uncharitable reading of the article which could cause any suggestion of bribery of McLaren to be interpreted and even libellers were not responsible for perverse misconstruction of what they had written. His Honour said a further submission for McLaren was that the article contained an accusation of treachery on the part of McLaren toward his own people, the watersiders, and the rank and file of the Labour Party. Whether such a meaning could be extracted from the article was a matter for the jury. His Honour commented that libel cases had a curious resemblance. The first thing Robinson did was to ask McLaren to show what was wrong and Mr. Goulding had done similarly when McLaren was in the witness box. It was possible to feel instinctively that an injury had been caused by a particular writing and yet it might be extremely difficult to explain precisely. why it was felt there was an injury. The purpose of the article seemed to have been to do harm to the candidature of Mr. Davis, said His Honour. The court was not concerned with whom Robinson was aiming at but with whether he hit McLaren. If in the course of trying to discredit Mr. Davis Robinson had done harm to McLaren it did not matter in the least that the object of the article was quite different. Justification was a defence. If the facts were true there were also limits to fair comment. A critic was not allowed, even with a public man, to be wrong in his facts. After a long retirement the jury returned a decision in favour of the defendants by 10 to two. Judgment was granted defendants with costs according to scale and other costs requested.