The Supreme Court has ruled that the Irish courts had no jurisdiction over John Coleman’s proceedings against MGN Limited, allowing the publisher’s appeal from a High Court decision that had refused to decline jurisdiction.
In a judgment delivered on 15 March 2012, Chief Justice Denham said the plaintiff’s case had shifted during the appeal. Coleman had begun proceedings in 2006, claiming damages for defamation and other alleged wrongs. By the Supreme Court hearing in March 2012, his counsel said the claim was in tort alone and relied on alleged publication of the Daily Mirror articles online.
The claim concerned a photograph of Coleman that appeared with articles published in the newspaper in March and September 2003. The statement of claim alleged that the photograph and articles conveyed defamatory meanings, including that Coleman was a drunkard or had engaged in criminal and anti-social conduct. Those were pleaded allegations; the Supreme Court did not determine whether they were true or whether the articles were defamatory.
The High Court had refused MGN’s application to have the proceedings stopped for lack of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court appeal was initially adjourned in 2010 after the parties indicated that evidence of the newspaper’s circulation in Ireland might be available. At the resumed hearing, Coleman’s counsel said those instructions had been incorrect. Counsel instead argued that the Daily Mirror was online and that there would be presumed visits to its site, while acknowledging there was no evidence that anyone had accessed it.
The court also considered UKPressOnline, an archival website. It said access to the relevant material was limited and that the available thumbnail could not identify Coleman; his name did not appear in the articles.
The Supreme Court identified three central problems with the online-publication case: the claim had not been pleaded as one based on online publication; there was no evidence that the Daily Mirror’s daily edition was online in 2003; and there was no evidence of visits to such a site from Ireland. The judgment described those as fatal flaws.
The court allowed the appeal and ordered that the Irish courts had no jurisdiction over the subject matter of the proceedings. The order concerned jurisdiction; the judgment did not decide the underlying defamation allegations.