Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 57


     
     1        the professor also succeeded and got damages.  What
     2        I cannot remember is what the damages were in Upjohn's
     3        favour or, for that matter, in the professor's favour.
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know about the professor.  The professor
     6        succeeded on the basis that Upjohn's response was out of
     7        proportion.  I am right about that am I not?  The awards of
     8        damages to Upjohn for what had been said about them, and it
     9        was in a sense a single allegation not a broad range of
    10        allegations like this case, was £60,000, and there was no
    11        actual damage claimed or proved.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is there anything in the personal injury
    14        world which you have which has led you to your bracket of
    15        £14,000 to £60,000?
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  Nothing at all.  I noted what the Court of Appeal
    18        had said in Upjohn.  I take that to mean not that you get
    19        out Kemp and Kemp and go trawling through it, which would
    20        be a nightmare, but simply that one looks at libelous as
    21        though they were personal injuries and one keeps in mind
    22        the Court of Appeal's guidance as to what the maximum
    23        awards in personal injury actions tend to be, and then one
    24        says to oneself, by that standard how serious is this
    25        libel?
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I know that Lord Bingham referred to loss of
    28        a limb, blindness and very severe brain damage as the three
    29        categories in the sort of figures you might get for those.
    30        I think he said £52,000, £90,000 and £125... or something
    31        of that kind.  But would it be wrong to say that the real
    32        message there is that the usefulness of referring to
    33        personal injury damages is to show what might be a
    34        reasonable ceiling rather than to look at gradations up to
    35        that reasonable ceiling?
    36
    37   MR. RAMPTON:  That strict gradational comparison was not
    38        recommended by the Court of Appeal and could not be because
    39        it had been expressly disapproved in Broadway Approvals,
    40        which is a decision of the Court of Appeal and also by the
    41        House of Lords in Broom v Castle.  You cannot do that.  You
    42        cannot say, is this comparable to the loss of a limb or is
    43        this comparable to the loss of an eye, whatever?  Because
    44        then you are comparing the incommensurable with the
    45        incommensurable and you get the double effect; it is just
    46        not on.  My reading of John is that the Court of Appeal
    47        thought that that was right.  But what you do look at is
    48        the question, which is really a question of public
    49        interest, are these enormous jury awards for libel
    50        acceptable in the light of the sort of awards that the 
    51        courts are making for personal injury? 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.  The next matter is that on page 26 of
    54        your legal submissions you refer to Lewis v Daily
    55        Telegraph, and something Lord Read said there.  I will not
    56        dig out the actual report but there was a sentence of Lord
    57        Read's, which I have written down, speaking of a Company:
    58        "Its reputation can be injured by a libel, but that injury
    59        must sound in money."  He was not referring to special
    60        loss, what was he referring to?

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