Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 08


     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, now that has the effect if I am not
     3        allowed or if your Lordship is not allowed to make a
     4        discount for any vindicatory effect of your judgment so far
     5        as the Plaintiffs are concerned, and if for, as we submit,
     6        at any rate the major part of the damage the Defendants are
     7        jointly liable, and if I have to have two awards, it does
     8        mean that the bracket which I originally gave I think in
     9        paragraph 6 -----
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The 40,000 to 60,000, was it?
    12
    13   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, is no longer right.  First, because that
    14        allowed for the discount in relation to a favourable
    15        judgment, that goes, and also plainly each Plaintiff has to
    16        be separately vindicated and compensated.  It rather looks
    17        to us, therefore, as though one could leave that bracket in
    18        place but say that that is the bracket for each Plaintiff
    19        separately, taking those two separate considerations into
    20        account.
    21
    22        I say that in the light of two authorities which we have
    23        dug out, which are unreported cases and were referred to in
    24        the Elton John case.  One is called Gorman v Mudd, that was
    25        decided in the Court of Appeal on 15th October 1992, and
    26        the other one was called Smith v Houston, decided in the
    27        Court of Appeal on 14th December 1993.
    28
    29   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, have we got copies?
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I am going to hand in copies.  The references
    32        to those cases, Elton John, whose reference is 1996, 3 WLR
    33        593, and the reference to Gorman v Mudd is on page 609 from
    34        letters A to E.
    35
    36   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, are we referring to this document?
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL: No.  One of the leading cases on damages,, as
    39        you are probably aware anyway by now, is a case called John
    40        v Mirror Group Newspapers which said that counsel or for
    41        that matter litigants in person can put suggested figures
    42        for damages before the jury or the judge, and it is
    43        legitimate to take some account of personal injury damages,
    44        just a measure of damages which may be in one's mind
    45        against them.  Mr. Rampton is saying that the case of
    46        Gorman v Mudd, which you have just been I think given a
    47        transcript of in the Court of Appeal, was referred to at
    48        page 609, A to E, of the judgment of the court in John.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  The other one, my Lord, Houston v Smith, actually
    51        Smith was the Plaintiff, the other reference in John is at
    52        610, letters C to F.  In both those cases the jury had
    53        awarded a sum of a £150,000 to the Plaintiffs.  In both
    54        those cases the Court of Appeal reduced that award under
    55        their new powers under the Supreme Court Act, to £50,000 in
    56        each case.  In both those cases there had been a plea of
    57        justification which had been unsuccessfully persisted with
    58        at trial.  In both those cases there was but, in essence,
    59        one allegation.  In both those cases the publication was
    60        very limited.  In Gorman v Mudd there was a libel published

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