Supreme Court hears libel award to Monica Leech ‘disproportionately high’

A €1.87 million libel award to communications consultant Monica Leech was so disproportionately high it should be set aside, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.

Lawyers for Independent Newspapers said the “chilling effect” on freedom of the press had to be taken into account in assessing such awards.

Ms Leech’s lawyers said the award should stand given the serious nature of the defamation and submitted compensatory damages embraced a great variety of elements.

A three-judge Supreme Court is hearing the appeal arising from the award made over a series of 10 articles in November and December 2004 in the Evening Herald , published by Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd.

Ms Leech claimed they meant she was having an extramarital affair with then minister for the environment Martin Cullen, which she strongly denied.

In 2009, a High Court jury found they did mean she had been having an affair and awarded her what was then the highest libel award in the history of the State.

The Supreme Court previously ordered Independent Newspapers to pay €750,000 to Ms Leech pending determination of the appeal by the publisher.

Gravity of defamation
Opening the appeal yesterday, Cian Ferriter SC, with Eoin McCullough SC, said the court must address where the case lay on the scale of gravity of defamations generally.

Previous cases had established a test concerning whether an award was so disproportionate it should be set aside, Mr Ferriter said.

While there was no objective mathematical approach to determining what was proportionate, matters to be considered included that the sum must compensate for damage to reputation, vindicate one’s good name and take account of distress, hurt and humiliation that the defamatory publication caused.

Defamations
Independent Newspapers submitted the jury was asked to deal with compensatory, not aggravated/exemplary damages and the defamation must be on the scale of gravity of defamations generally.

While the jury determined the articles meant Ms Leech was having an extramarital affair with a minister, that, while undoubtedly serious, did not come within the category of “the grossest and most serious libels” to come before the courts, Mr Ferriter added.

Mr Ferriter also argued there were valid questions of public interest posed in the Herald articles that merited the "alternative meanings" defence run in the original trial.

While the Supreme Court has been reluctant to seek to benchmark libel awards with personal injury awards, the highest levels of awards in personal injury cases did provide a “helpful touchstone” in assessing proportionality.

Frank Callanan SC, for Ms Leech, urged the court to allow the award to stand, over what he described as “a grotesque” allegation that a happily married mother of two had had an affair for personal and commercial reasons.

The appeal continues.