Opportunity to answer

Armstrong v Times Newspapers Ltd and others CASJ 12 August

A failure to put damaging allegations to a person before publishing them does not necessarily deprive a Defendant of the defence of qualified privilege based on Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd [2001] 2 AC 127. On an application for summary judgment, the judge must be careful to ensure that he accepted the defendant’s case as true unless there was no reasonable prospect that some or all of it would be accepted as true. It was wrong on the facts of this case to have denied Times Newspapers the benefit of the trial process by doing the balancing exercise under Reynolds before hearing its witnesses give evidence. Accordingly, the defence of qualified privilege which had been struck out, was restored.