CA-2024-001499 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1321

This appeal is about proof of the fact, causation, and seriousness of reputational harm in claims for defamation.

At common law a published statement about a person is actionable if it has a defamatory tendency, that is to say it bears a meaning which (a) attributes to that person behaviour or views that are contrary to common shared views of society and (b) would tend to have a substantially adverse effect on the way that people would treat the person. For these purposes the law treats a statement as having only one natural and ordinary meaning: the “single meaning” which the statement would convey to a hypothetical reasonable reader. The threshold for a successful claim was raised by section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 (“the 2013 Act”). Section 1(1) provides that “A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant”. The meaning and effect of those 23 words (“the serious harm requirement”) have been the subject of a good deal of litigation in the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court over the past decade. On this appeal we need to look at those questions again.

The main issue is whether decisions of the High Court on whether the serious harm requirement was met in this case were wrong in law. A particular focus of attention is the court’s approach to the reputational impact of statements other than the ones complained of as libels, including the so-called “rule” in Dingle v Associated Newspapers Ltd [1964] AC 371 (“Dingle”). The appeal also raises issues about how to assess the extent of reputational harm and the appropriate damages, if the threshold is crossed.

The appeal is brought by Laurence Fox against orders made by Mrs Justice Collins Rice after the trial of claims and counterclaims for damages for libel.

In posts on Twitter in October 2020 Simon Blake, Colin Seymour, and Nicola Thorp each called Mr Fox racist or a racist. He responded with three tweets of his own which called his accusers paedophiles. They sued him for that. So I shall refer to them collectively as “the claimants”. Mr Fox counterclaimed for their use of the word racist. Three points were decided as preliminary issues: the single meaning of each of the various tweets, whether they were statements of fact or expressions of opinion, and whether they were defamatory at common law: see the decision of Nicklin J, [2022] EWHC 3542 (KB), largely upheld on appeal ([2023] EWCA Civ 1000).

The claimants’ tweets were each held to mean that Mr Fox was a racist. That was identified as an expression of opinion which was defamatory at common law. At the trial, the claimants all denied that their tweets had caused serious harm. In the alternative, Mr Blake and Mr Seymour relied on the defence of honest opinion. Ms Thorp could not rely on the defence of honest opinion because her tweet did not meet the statutory condition that it “indicated ... the basis of the opinion”: see s 3(3) of the 2013 Act. Her defence was that the allegation was true. Mr Fox denied that it was true or that it was or could be honest opinion. The judge held it was not necessary to resolve those issues. In her judgment on liability she held that Mr Fox had failed to prove that any of the tweets complained of had caused or were likely to cause serious harm to his reputation. For that reason she dismissed all his claims. On this appeal Mr Fox says the judge was wrong to reject his case and that on a proper application of the law the only conclusion open to her was that each of the tweets complained of did cause serious harm to his reputation.

The term “paedophile” was held to be a statement of fact. Mr Fox’s case was that in context it was not defamatory at common law: it was a baseless allegation he had made rhetorically to highlight the baselessness of the attack on him, and this would be obvious to any reasonable reader. This court upheld that argument in respect of the tweet about Ms Thorp, given the obvious use of parody in that tweet. Her claim was dismissed. The tweets about Mr Blake and Mr Seymour were held to be defamatory at common law and their claims went to trial. Mr Fox defended those claims on the basis that his tweets had not caused serious reputational harm or alternatively were privileged as statements in reasonable defence of his own reputation. In her judgment on liability the judge held that the tweets had caused serious reputational harm and rejected the privilege defence. In a separate judgment on damages, she awarded Mr Blake and Mr Seymour damages of £90,000 each. On this appeal Mr Fox argues that the judge was wrong in law to find that his tweets caused serious reputational harm. Alternatively, he argues that the damages awards were excessive.