‘Unprecedented’ summary judgment application dismissed (Price v MGN)

Table of contents

• What was the background?
• What did the court decide?
• Case details

Article summary

TMT analysis: The High Court has determined the defamatory meaning of three articles published in the Mirror online and Mirror Newspaper about former Chief Constable Sean Price and dismissed the defendant publisher’s application for summary judgment and strike out of the claimant’s libel claim. The court dismissed the argument that, as the articles complained of contained allegations about telephone interception along with more harmful allegations about the claimant’s dismissal for misconduct, the claim could not succeed in establishing that the interception allegations had caused the claimant serious reputational harm. Calling the application unprecedented, the court found that argument to be contrary to established principles of case law and section 2(3) of the Defamation Act 2013 (DA 2013).