After incorrectly labelling a businessman in one of its articles as a tax defaulter, Iconic Newspapers’ appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. William Bird, age 82, operator of Stella Bingo Hall and director of William Bird Limerick Ltd, received €75,000 awarded by the High Court jury in May last year, after finding that Iconic’s Limerick Leader article, published in 2016, was libellous.
The article in question detailed tax settlements from a list by the Revenue Commissioners and wrongly attributed them to Mr Bird from Castleconnell. The article inaccurately reported that Mr Bird had three separate under-declaration of tax settlements for corporation tax, VAT, and PAYE/PRSI. As a result, a payment of €183,595 was made to Revenue, according to the report.
However, these settlements were not made by Mr Bird, but rather by three companies with similar names: William Bird (Rollercoaster) Limited, William Bird (Sales) Limited, and William Bird Tramore Limited. Mr Bird was uninvolved with either of these entities.
Iconic had defended its position in the High Court by stating that it was defended under qualified privilege, implying that the publication was permissible as it gave necessary information to interested readers and the publisher believed in the readers’ need for this information. This claim was discarded by the High Court judge.
While the jury concluded that the defamatory phrases did indeed refer to Mr Bird, the €75,000 awarded fell short by €1 of securing High Court costs for his trial. Instead, he was only granted the lesser Circuit Court costs as ruled by the judge.
The decision of the judge involving Iconic’s privilege appeal was refuted, while Mr Bird contested the decision regarding costs. In a ruling given by Mr Justice Brian O’Moore on behalf of the Court of Appeal’s three-judge panel, it was established that the High Court Judge was correct in his assessment of the privilege question. However, Mr Justice O’Moore expressed doubts about the judge’s proper attention to the unique legal question involved.
Mr Justice O’Moore also pointed out his reservations on the consideration given by the judge to the hair’s breadth difference in the award given by the jury to Mr Bird, compared to the amount that would make him eligible for High Court costs. The ruling was made in favour of Mr Bird, confirming that he was entitled to High Court costs.
Iconic’s claim about privilege on the occasion of the list of tax defaulters published by the Limerick Leader was accepted by Mr Justice O’Moore. Nonetheless, he suggested that Iconic’s argument could be misinterpreted as a complete defence for any publisher who honestly disseminates possibly incorrect information about serious criminal activities to the public.
Mr Justice O’Moore branded this potential implication of Iconic’s argument as not just unappealing – to borrow Iconic Newspaper’s counsel’s term – but also potentially contravening the constitutional right to the protection of a person’s reputation, as established by legal precedent. He asserted that, if such monumental changes to the law were the legislature’s intention, it should have been clearly articulated.
Moreover, he asserted that the report of the Limerick Leader detailing the tax defaulters list was neither accurate nor fair, a requirement of defamation law.