Simon Black & Ors. v Lawrence Fox

Determination of a publication’s natural and ordinary meaning is a wholly objective exercise applying the single-meaning rule. The relevant context is that available to the notional ordinary, reasonable reader, including material presented to all readers with the publication. Evidence of how particular readers encountered or understood the publication is inadmissible on meaning, although it may be relevant to serious harm and damages. Partitioning readers into categories based on different extrinsic contexts impermissibly introduces innuendo meanings into the natural-and-ordinary-meaning inquiry.

The judgment concerned consequential and case-management issues in defamation proceedings arising from publications on Twitter. The court had previously refused the defendant’s application for jury trial in [2022] EWHC 1124 (QB). The present judgment determined the costs of that application and ruled on the admissibility of proposed evidence concerning the contexts in which the defendant’s Tweets appeared to different categories of readers.

The central issue was whether disclosure, possible third-party material from Twitter, or expert evidence should be directed to investigate how particular readers encountered the Tweets when determining their natural and ordinary meaning.

1. The defendant’s application for jury trial was a self-contained application. It had failed and had caused significant disruption and delay. The defendant was therefore ordered to pay the claimants’ costs of the mode-of-trial application. The effective abolition of jury trial in defamation claims by the Defamation Act 2013 made the application ambitious, although not totally without merit.

2. The single-meaning rule remains an embedded principle of defamation law. A publication must be attributed one natural and ordinary meaning, notwithstanding that different readers may understand words in different senses. The assessment is wholly objective and asks what the notional ordinary, reasonable reader would understand.

3. The admissible evidence for determining natural and ordinary meaning is usually the publication itself. In limited cases it may include extrinsic material, such as material available through a hyperlink. The relevant context is the context available to the notional reader, not the individual circumstances in which particular readers encountered or understood the publication.

4. Evidence directed to partitioning the readership into categories, according to different Twitter timelines, followers, re-Tweets, quote-Tweets, or media republication, was inadmissible for the meaning issue. Such evidence would introduce different meanings based on reader-specific extrinsic knowledge and would cross the principled boundary between natural and ordinary meaning and innuendo meaning.

5. Material forming part of a quote-Tweet, or a response appearing with the original Tweet and available to all readers, may be relevant context. The court refused directions for disclosure or potentially expert evidence aimed at establishing how particular categories of readers saw the Tweets. Those matters could become relevant later to serious harm under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 and, if necessary, damages.

The judgment records the court’s earlier refusal of the defendant’s jury-trial application in [2022] EWHC 1124 (QB). The present judgment dealt with consequential costs and further directions in the same first-instance proceedings.