Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

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https://www.msrs.co.uk/the-libel-labyrinth-navigating-the-tw...

> The costs in this case were significant, with Vardy being ordered to pay a substantial proportion of Rooney’s legal fees. Initially, the court ordered Vardy to pay £1.5 million in costs, earlier this month, it was revealed that Vardy had been ordered to pay an additional £100,000, bringing the total to £1.6 million.

https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/news/noel-clarke-ordered-to-pay-...

> In August, after a six week trial, the High Court upheld the Guardian’s defences of truth and public interest speech.

> The trial judge, Steyn J, has now ordered Mr Clarke to pay £3m on account within 28 days, in respect of a likely eventual costs liability of over £6m.

Those are cases where the defence won. But in those cases, (a) they have to front the legal fees themselves for a period of several years during the action and (b) there is a real risk that the person who filed the libel action may not be able to pay it.

It very risky for an individual to defend a libel action, so almost everyone folds instantly on receiving a letter, or settles.

An exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins - peak Twitter, sadly. Fortunately in this case justice prevailed and Katie Hopkins lost her house and life savings.

> Lots of people are celebrating but I’m not. It's a sad, lonely sort of anticlimax. It’s really crap and I feel really bad it’s all ended up like this. I thought she'd just say sorry

Wow.

> In May 2018, Hopkins won an IPSO case against the Daily Mirror for claiming that she had been detained in South Africa in February 2018 for taking ketamine. The Mirror updated the headline to say that she had been detained for spreading racial hatred, and included a correction in the article.

Pick your battles, eh

You are (wilfully?) misrepresenting these cases. The defence in each of these cases chose to employ very expensive legal teams, the cost in these cases is a reflection of choices made by the defendant, not the cost of defending against a claim of libel. As an individual defendant in a libel case, there would be no obligation to incur such costs.

Noel Clarke's legal team were working on a no-win no-fee basis (before they saw the writing on the wall and dropped him as a client, leading him to represent himself). The Guardian had no obligation to spend over £6 million on their defence, it was a choice they made. Indeed, one could argue that The Guardian chose to spend so much to send a message to those that consider baseless libel legal action in future, that The Guardian is willing to spend any amount of money to defend itself.

If you are an individual who posts the truth online, and you are sued for libel, you can spend very little on mounting a defence (you may even choose to represent yourself for free). Whether the litigant spends thousands, millions or billions on their action against you is immaterial as it is their cost, not yours.

As for Jack Monroe vs. Hopkins, Jack Monroe is a fraud. Justice did not prevail, although Hopkins losing her house was a nice treat.

Yes, I once made a bug report based to a client's supplier (overly permissive API endpoint was leading user data) and became the subject of the a spurious defamation letter. It was obviously unwinnable on the supplier's part, never went past solicitor's letters, and still cost high four figures to defend.

Nothing like some of the real horror stories, but still a significant chilling effect.

> ...and still cost high four figures to defend

You do not need to "defend" against a "spurious defamation letter". The (very profitable) business of sending legal letters is based on the misunderstanding of the law that is perpetuated online. Legal letters are to law firms what bandwidth is to cloud hosting providers: free money.

Bandwidth isn't free to a cloud hosting provider in any real sense of the word. It's not priced in relation to cost, but it definitely does cost

In the UK, under the UK Civil Procedure Rules, you are expected to engage in the Pre-Action Protocol and provide a substantive response within 14 days, and failure to do so can effect you credibility and standing in court. So you do not have to respond, but not doing so risks sanction from the court for non-engagement.

You're proving my point. You are catastrophising.

A response to a "spurious defamation letter" does not cost "high four figures". Substantive does not refer to the cost of the response. Substantive means that it addresses the substance of the complaint.

The "high four figures" you spent for a lawyer to respond (I disagree with the word "defend") to a legal threat was unnecessary. You paid a bunch of money for some low-paid legal assistants to fill out a template, and then a high-paid solicitor to sign off on it.

As an individual, you can respond substantively to a legal threat for free. And even if you choose not to respond, courts are not punitive, the standard that courts hold individuals to are different to the standards they hold law firms to. A court will not rule in a claimant's favour in a libel case because an individual didn't follow procedure correctly.

If you, as an individual, make a truthful statement about A Big Corporation and A Big Corporation spends £100,000 on a team of lawyers to write an angry letter to you demanding you retract, a simple single-sentence self-composed response of "The statement is true, I will not retract." is substantive.

Despite what catastrophisers like yourself (catastrophisers who are encouraged by participants in the legal system who profit from this misapprehension) might suggest, civil courts are interested in adjudicating fairness, not trapping individuals in an endless legal quagmire.

Can you share examples of individuals who have been sanctioned by the U.K. courts for anything that comes close to not engaging in the Pre-Action Protocol?

No, the Pre-Action Protocol is quite a bit more in depth than that and required a significant response including document review and research.

"The statement is true, I will not retract" is not substantive and is effectively calling the bluff. If they take it beyond a letter, those costs will balloon further.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/prot...

The "Defendant’s Response to Letter of Claim" section is very clear that it is actually that simple. The burden is almost entirely on the claimant, the defendant has very little to do. Can you provide any evidence that any individual has ever been sanctioned by a U.K. court for either not filing a response, or not filing a substantive response?

You are saying that "costs will balloon further" but you haven't yet established there are any costs. How can costs that do not exist balloon? Any individual could satisfy the "Pre-action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims" with ease, no expense necessary.

Costs upon commencement of litigation. Are you being purposely obtuse or trolling?

The point I am making in this thread is that there are no mandatory costs, that receiving an angry letter from the lawyers of a deep-pocketed litigant is financially inconsequential. The choice to hire legal representation and pay them "high four figures" to write a response is a choice. Hiring legal representation for court is a choice, too.

The courts are very kind to people who choose to represent themselves, especially when the litigants are obviously abusing the system to try and silence individuals. The point you're making seems to be that you must spend money to defend against spurious defamation claims so I have asked you to provide any evidence of a case where an individual is accused of libel and has suffered because they chose not to spend money.

I am not trolling. I disagree with the suggestion that the U.K. libel laws create an environment where people are scared to speak truth because there is a real threat of an expensive lawsuit. My position is that the fear people have of expensive lawsuits comes from other people fear mongering, in comments like yours, either based on a misunderstanding of a case they've seen publicised or because of information they've been given by legal professionals in a different context.

Okay, so you are trolling or you are at peak levels at HN arrogance.

No, the chilling effect of UK defamation laws is not an artefact of scaremongering. No, you have not discovered the secret truth hidden by the legal profession. Yes, defamation cases are a real threat and expensive to defend as the burden of proof lies on the defendant, not the allegedly defamed.

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