Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 36


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I had come to Morgan v. Odhams Press
     2        Limited.  This, as your Lordship will recollect, is in fact
     3        a case about identification and an action based on some
     4        articles or an article in a popular Sunday newspaper, and a
     5        daily one as well, I believe.  But it nonetheless contains
     6        what your Lordship may think are useful expressions of
     7        principle.  First of all, in Lord Reid's speech at
     8        page 1245, starting at letter G, he says:
     9
    10                  "If we are to follow Lewis' case and take
    11             the ordinary man as our guide then we must
    12             accept a certain amount of loose thinking.  The
    13             ordinary reader does not formulate reasons in
    14             his own mind:  he gets a general impression and
    15             one can expect him to look again before coming
    16             to a conclusion and acting on it.  But
    17             formulated reasons are very often an
    18             afterthought.
    19                  The publishers of newspapers must know the
    20             habits of mind of their readers and I see no
    21             injustice in holding them liable if readers,
    22             behaving as they normally do, honestly reach
    23             conclusions which they might be expected to
    24             reach.  If one were to adopt a stricter
    25             standards it would be too easy for purveyors of
    26             gossip to disguise their defamatory matter so
    27             that the judge would have to say that there is
    28             insufficient to entitle the plaintiff to go to
    29             trial on the question whether that matter refers
    30             to him....."
    31
    32        Or, as we would say in this case is defamatory of him.
    33
    34             "....but the ordinary reader with perhaps more
    35             worldly wisdom would see the connection and
    36             identify the plaintiff with consequent damage to
    37             his reputation for which the law would have to
    38             refuse him reparation."
    39
    40        Then, my Lord, on page 1254 in -----
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me read that again.
    43
    44   MR. RAMPTON:  Sorry, yes.  (Pause)  Then, my Lord, 1254, in the
    45        speech of Lord Morris, between B and C, there is a sentence
    46        which begins, just above C: "Further it was said...."
    47
    48   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, where are we?
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just above C. 
    51 
    52   MR. RAMPTON:  On page 1254, just above letter C. 
    53
    54             "Further, it was said that what must be
    55             contemplated is that a person would read an
    56             article with care.  With respect I do not
    57             agree.  What must be contemplated is a reading
    58             of a newspaper in what a jury would consider to
    59             be the ordinary way in which a newspaper article
    60             would be read.  The average reader does not read

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