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Restaurant reviewers choke on Irish libel verdict
Hotel Business
15 March 2007
The decision last week by a Northern Ireland jury to award £25,000 damages in a libel action brought over a restaurant review has caused predictable outrage in the media fraternity. One notably trenchant journalist (and reviewer) thundered that: “If this stands, it could be the end of serious restaurant reviews.” Before this prospect causes all civilised people to pick up their placards and march on Parliament, it is worth looking at the legal position to assess the case’s true significance.
The owner of Goodfellas Italian restaurant in west Belfast sued the Irish News over a review published back in 2000. He described the review (which gave his establishment one star out of five and criticised its food, ambience and service) as “a hatchet job”. The jury apparently agreed and compensated him accordingly.
A publication is defamatory if it lowers you in the estimation of right thinking members of society. A savage restaurant review satisfies this test. One then has to consider what defences the newspaper could have raised to contest the claim.
The most fundamental defence is justification. If the defendant can prove what it wrote is true, it has a complete defence to a libel action.
In the case of a restaurant review, however, the newspaper is more likely to rely on the defence of fair comment. If the words complained of are clearly opinion (rather than factual assertion) on a matter of public interest, honestly based on the true facts, the defence will apply. In that event, the claimant can only defeat the defence if he proves the words were published maliciously. In defamation, this means either that the publisher knew that words were untrue (or did not care either way) or that it published them for a dominant improper motive.
When a jury delivers a verdict in a libel case, there is no written judgment setting out the reasons for the decision. None of the coverage devoted to the Goodfellas case has specified the evidence presented to the Court which persuaded the jury to reach the conclusion it did. Presumably something convinced the jury that the review was neither true nor fair comment.
What is certain is that a jury decision in one Northern Ireland libel action sets no precedent. Each case is determined on its own facts and evidence. And as for the fear that this decision will open the floodgates to a banquet of libel actions from restaurant owners against hostile reviewers, that seems most unlikely. If this prediction proves wrong, then on the timescale of this case, expect the walls surrounding the fortress of freedom of expression to come tumbling down in around 2014!
Jeremy Clarke-Williams
Partner & Joint Head of Defamation
Russell Jones & Walker