Libel Summary Judgment

Alexander v Arts Council of Wales and Another (CA TLR 27 April)

This judgment considered the respective functions of judge and jury in libel actions. In Safeway plc v Tate (20/LL p28) it was held that the trial judge in a libel action could determine questions which fell within his jurisdiction on an application for summary judgment under CPR rule 24.2, but it was beyond the power of the Civil Procedure Rules Committee to limit the right to trial by jury or the right to have the question “libel or no libel” determined by the jury. Furthermore, the judge should not anticipate the possibility that the verdict of the jury on that, or other matters within their province, might be perverse and such that it would be reversed on appeal. In the present action for libel and slander, it was held that insofar as questions of law which fell for determination by the judge depended on an evaluation of evidence so as to determine material questions of disputed fact, those were matters for the jury. However, it was open to the judge to come to the conclusion that the evidence, taken at its highest, was such that a jury properly directed could not properly reach a necessary factual conclusion. In those circumstances it was the judge’s duty, upon a submission being made to him, to withdraw that issue from the jury. If a party’s case depended on a finding of fact by the jury which, if it were so found, was bound to be set aside on appeal as perverse, the judge should withdraw that issue from the jury in the first place. This was not merely speculating that the jury might reach a perverse decision, rather that the only jury decision capable of supporting the case in question would be bound to be set aside on appeal. The court dismissed the appeal against the decision of the trial judge to discharge the jury and enter judgment for the defendants on the grounds that the jury could not find that the publications complained of had been made maliciously and therefore the action could not succeed.