Scott v Bodley
[2022] NSWDC 651
At a glance
Source factsCourt
District Court of NSW
Decision date
2022-12-19
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (14 paragraphs)
The application before the court and the parties
- These are proceedings for defamation arising out of the publication by the defendant of a review on both the plaintiff's Google listing and his Facebook page for his business, Pottsville Painting Services.
- The defendant and her husband contacted the plaintiff for a quotation for external and internal painting of their house in July 2021. The quote was accepted and the work commenced in February 2022. The defendant and her husband were unhappy with the plaintiff's work, which they said was unfinished, had over 130 defects and resulted in damage to their personal property. A review to this effect was posted, together with a number of photographs, on both the Google review page for the plaintiff's business and the Facebook page of Pottsville Painting Services. These publications remained online between 16 March and 31 March 2022, when they were taken down in response to a concerns notice.
- Proceedings were commenced on 11 July 2022. On 10 October 2022, after a contested hearing, the Court ordered, pursuant to s 10A of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) ("the Act") that the jurisdictional issue of serious harm would be determined separately and before the trial of the proceedings and a hearing date of 19 December 2022 was allocated for this separate determination.
Serious harm