SLANDER ACTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 86, 12 April 1938, Page 8

SLANDER ACTION

WAIHI HOSPITAL CASE JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANT [ Per Frees Association. ] AUCKLAND, April 11. Judgment for defendant without costs was given by Mr Justice Fair in the Supreme Court in the case in which Mrs Isabella Jane Paddock, former matron of Waihi Hospital, sued Dr Archibald Jenkins, medical superintendent of the hospital, claiming £475 damages for alleged slander and libel. Plaintiff alleged that Dr. Jenkins had spoken falsely and maliciously of her to members of the Waihi Hospital Board and others. Defendant made a general denial ano claimed that if the words complained of were used they were privileged and used without malice and in the belief that they were true.

His Honour said he had found earlier that the publication of the words complained of had been proved in each case except one, on which plaintiff did not desire to proceed. He found, also, that in each case the words were spoken on an occasion which conferred qualified privilege on defendant, which meant that the words were privileged unless malice on his part could be shown. That left as the sole issue the question whether plaintiff had established that in making these defamatory statements defendant was actuated by malice so as to remove the protection of the qualified privilege. If the statements were made with an honest desire to perform a duty and were not due to other motives, then protection was afforded. It was not necessarily malice, although the statements were excessive and went beyond what the facts reasonably justified. Many considerations led to the conclusion that rightly or wrongly defendant quite honestly came to the conclusion that Mrs Paddock was not as suitable a matron as he wished to have hi the hospital. “I think the same motive really governed him all through,” said His Honour. “He desired to see the best matron in the hospital and in the performance of that he made a great number of indiscreet statements which could not be substantiated, but in no case did I find it proved that he was influenced ay malice in these matters.” His Honour then gave judgment for defendant without costs.