The Supreme Court has said appellate courts should continue to give weight to jury awards in defamation cases, even though they may substitute a damages award where the circumstances justify it.
In a judgment delivered on 7 March 2022, Justice Elizabeth Dunne agreed with Justice MacMenamin’s judgment in an appeal brought by Pádraig Higgins against the Irish Aviation Authority. She also addressed a disagreement about the effect of section 13 of the Defamation Act 2009 on appellate review of jury damages awards.
Justice Dunne rejected Justice Hogan’s view that section 13 directed a change to the established practice of deference to jury awards. She said the section clarified that an appellate court had discretion to substitute its own damages figure, a jurisdiction that had previously been exercised rarely and about which there had been some doubt. In her view, the section did not change the underlying principles for deciding when a jury’s award should be set aside.
She said juries remained important in defamation cases because they assess injury to reputation from the perspective of the community. The Oireachtas had retained jury trials for defamation even as juries were removed from most other civil cases, she observed. Jury awards therefore remained entitled to a degree of deference, although an error shown on appeal had to be corrected.
Whether an appellate court should substitute an award or remit the matter for a new trial depended on the facts and circumstances, Justice Dunne said. Relevant considerations could include delay, costs, the administration of justice and the burden on parties of a retrial. If the record lacked sufficient clarity for the appellate court to assess damages, a retrial could be necessary.
Justice Dunne said this was a case in which substitution was appropriate, for the reasons set out in Justice MacMenamin’s judgment. She concluded that the appropriate damages sum was the one specified in that judgment. The source extract does not state that sum or provide the details of the underlying defamation allegation or the lower court’s award.