Otuo v Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain & Ors

A defamation claim should be dismissed as an abuse of process under the Jameel jurisdiction only where the resources required for adjudication are wholly disproportionate to any legitimate reputational benefit, and no proportionate alternative means of resolving the dispute exists. The assessment is fact-sensitive and is not determined merely by the number of publishees. The court must proceed cautiously where serious defamatory meanings remain possible and factual issues are unresolved. A prior interim decision should generally be revisited only after a material change of circumstances. For innuendo, meaning is assessed objectively by reference to the hypothetical reasonable publishee possessing the relevant extrinsic facts. A religious-community meaning satisfies the consensus requirement only if it imputes conduct contrary to values shared by society generally.

The claimant brought two first-instance slander claims. Claim 1 concerned an announcement that he was no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Claim 2 concerned words spoken at a meeting considering his application for reinstatement.

The defendants applied shortly before trial to dismiss both claims as an abuse of process under the Jameel jurisdiction. Claim 2 had previously survived a similar application before Master Leslie and an appeal before Sir David Eady. The issues included meaning, defamatory character, privilege, malice, damage and the defendants’ separate argument that the claims were non-justiciable because they arose from religious membership. The judgment determined the renewed abuse application and certain meaning issues.

1. Abuse of process. The court must be satisfied that the costs and resources required to adjudicate a claim are out of all proportion to any legitimate benefit to the claimant, and that no proportionate alternative means of resolving the dispute exists. The assessment requires attention both to the inherent gravity of the publication and to the complexity and cost of determining whether a remedy is justified. It is not a mere numbers exercise. The seriousness of a publication depends on its nature, the claimant and the publishees, and disputed facts material to abuse should generally be left to the tribunal of fact.
2. Claim 1. The evidence and admissions established that six elders knew of the fraud investigation. To those insiders, the words conveyed that the claimant had been disfellowshipped for fraud and was guilty of fraud. Fraud was an allegation of dishonesty and was plainly defamatory under the common-law test. The wider pleaded innuendo, based only on knowledge of the general principles of disfellowship, was artificial and incapable of conveying the selected list of sins. The range of possible religious offences was too broad to satisfy the consensus requirement. The claim nevertheless involved a real possibility of substantial damages, reputational harm and vindication, and was not inherently trivial. Its complexity and expense did not make it abusive.
3. Claim 2. The meaning and defamatory character of the words had already been determined by Sir David Eady. It was therefore untenable to invite the court to proceed on the basis that there was no defamatory sting. The later procedural developments did not materially alter the overall assessment, particularly since the possibility of privilege and malice had already existed. The application to dismiss Claim 2 was refused.
4. Previous decisions. The court was entitled to review Claim 2 because it had materially developed, but it was not entitled simply to start afresh. A previously determined interim issue should be revisited only where a material change of circumstances justifies reconsideration. Both applications were refused.

The judgment records earlier procedural decisions in the same litigation:

• High Court: Master Leslie dismissed an earlier Jameel application in Claim 2 on 24 November 2014.
• High Court: Sir David Eady, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, dismissed the appeal on 26 June 2015: [2015] EWHC 1839 (QB).
• High Court: Judge Parkes made procedural orders following judgments on 30 August 2018: [2018] EWHC 2304 (QB) and [2018] EWHC 2305 (QB).
• High Court: The present court refused the defendants’ renewed applications to dismiss both claims.