Ameyaw v McGoldrick & Ors (Rev 1)

A court may proceed in a litigant’s absence where there has been proper notice and the evidence does not establish that illness prevents a fair hearing, even with reasonable adjustments. An adjournment requires more than an assertion of ill health.

An injunction protecting private information requires evidence of a genuine risk of wrongful disclosure and must be necessary and proportionate. Where publication is sought to be restrained before trial, Human Rights Act 1998 s 12(3) imposes a heightened threshold.

In defamation claims, meaning and defamatory tendency may be tried as preliminary issues. Serious harm under s 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 ordinarily requires factual assessment and was not suitable for preliminary determination here. Claims were struck out or summarily dismissed where privilege, limitation, abuse, defective pleading or lack of realistic merit was established.

Yvonne Ameyaw brought claims against two in-house solicitors and their employer arising from the conduct of earlier Employment Tribunal proceedings. The claims included libel, malicious falsehood, breach of confidence, misuse of private information, harassment, negligence and data-protection breaches.

The defendants applied for preliminary determination of meaning, fact or opinion and defamatory tendency, together with strike-out and summary judgment. The claimant applied for injunctions concerning medical reports and sought an adjournment on health grounds. She did not attend the hearing.

The court therefore considered whether to proceed in her absence, whether to restrain use or disclosure of the medical material, and whether the pleaded claims disclosed viable causes of action.

1. Proceeding in the claimant’s absence. The claimant had ample notice of the hearing and the issues. The medical material consisted principally of an old GP letter recording a self-report, with no adequate current evidence addressing her ability to participate. The court applied the principles in Decker v Hopcraft and related authorities: illness must be proved by evidence addressing its impact on participation and whether a fair hearing is possible with reasonable accommodations. The hearing therefore proceeded under CPR 23.11.
2. Medical information. The claimant failed to establish a genuine risk that the defendants would misuse or publicise the reports. An injunction or restriction on evidence must be necessary and proportionate. The heightened test in s 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 was not met. The proper forum for controlling disclosure in other proceedings was the relevant tribunal or court. The court nevertheless continued the CPR 31.22 collateral-use restrictions until further order.
3. Defamation issues. Meaning is assessed by the ordinary reasonable reader in the full context and is a matter of impression. The first three emails conveyed mildly defamatory factual meanings but did not cross the common-law seriousness threshold. The second publication conveyed factual allegations of aggressive and threatening conduct and was defamatory, but the claim could not proceed because of limitation, absolute privilege, lack of serious harm and defective pleading.
4. Disposition. The email libel claim and the claim concerning the application to the Employment Tribunal were struck out and dismissed by summary judgment. The medical-information claim was struck out as abusive. The document-disclosure claims were struck out except for the alleged breach of subject-access rights under the Data Protection Act 1998, which was transferred to the County Court. The remaining inadequately pleaded claims were struck out, subject to a possible application to amend claims in privacy, harassment or negligence.

This was a first-instance decision. The judgment records earlier Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal proceedings, but does not identify an appeal from the present decision.