AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LTD v MARSDEN

Court of Appeal (NSW)|1998-07-06|Before: Priestley JA, Levine J

AMALGAMATED TELEVISION SERVICES PTY LTD v MARSDEN SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

Priestley JA The application before the Court is by the defendant in defamation proceedings, which have had a fairly lengthy interlocutory history, a fate to which defamation proceedings in this State seem to be doomed, notwithstanding the constant criticism by this court of the length of time the interlocutory matters take.

In this particular instance, the matters which have been argued this morning on behalf of the claimant defendant were dealt with in detail by his Honour Justice Levine.

The Court sees no need to do any more in relation to the application than to say that it sees no error in the conclusion at which Levine J arrived, nor in the general reasoning by which he arrived at those conclusions.

Some matters in respect of which this Court might express a little differently the form of some of the reasons given by Levine J have been fairly fully explored in argument, and need not be repeated in these reasons.

In substance, as I have already indicated, the Court agrees with the reasons and conclusions of Levine J.

One further matter to mention is that, in arriving at this conclusion, some consideration was given to the full paragraph which appears on p9 of Levine J's reasons. The opening sentence in that paragraph, standing alone, might cause some difficulty in its use of the words "teenage boys". However, that difficulty disappears if a defining sentence which occurs later in the paragraph is accepted as correct.

In the course of the argument today it became clear that both plaintiff and defendant were content to accept what I have called the defining sentence as a correct one, and as setting out the basis upon which argument proceeded before Levine J in regard to imputations involving the use of the words "teenage boys".

It is on that footing that the Court has reached its agreement, as I have endeavoured to express it, with his Honour's reasons and conclusions.

In the result, the application should be dismissed with costs.

The Court is of the view that, notwithstanding the further matter that has been put before us concerning the worry that was caused to the defendant by its understanding of the plaintiffs position, nevertheless that position was sufficiently clear for the ordinary order to be made in this application, that the application be dismissed with costs.

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Judgment (11 paragraphs)

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