Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Proving serious harm and limits of reply-to-attack privilege in defamation on social media: Blake and Seymour v Fox [2024] EWHC 146 (KB)

Published on: 09 February 2024

Published by a LexisNexis TMT expert

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Blake and Seymour v Fox [2024] EWHC 146 (KB) What are the practical implications of the case?

The judgment provides a thorough examination of the elements needed to prove serious harm and the supporting evidence, especially where a prominent defendant, already associated with controversy and criticism, seeks to show that the particular allegations complained of caused reputational damage. It further highlights that ‘indiscriminately lobbed’ claims can land on ‘highly combustible material’; the consequences in the real world matter even if allegations are promptly removed, and it is often the ‘insidious creation of a “bad odour”, together with the difficulty of establishing a negative, that does the most reputational harm’. Practitioners should also advise clients pursuing vindication through specific findings of fact that the court will not stray beyond what is strictly necessary. In this instance, because the defendant failed to prove serious harm on his counterclaim, the court did not address the defences, including a truth defence that would have required a ruling on whether the defendant was a racist. The serious harm requirement ‘enshrines a default to free speech’; that is, statements which are not defamatory do not need to be defended...

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