The publisher of the Belfast newspaper Sunday Life is asking the High Court to strike out a defamation claim brought against it by a Sinn Féin constituency organiser.
Liam Lappin, who has an address in Drumcondra, Dublin, claims he was defamed in an article published online and in print by Mediahuis UK Limited on March 1st, 2020.
A tweet the following day by former Sunday Life columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards, in which she shared the article and added a comment, also defamed him, he alleges.
He has sued Mediahuis and its reporter Suzanne Breen over the article, and Ms Dudley Edwards over her subsequent tweet.
On Tuesday, Mr Justice Charles Meenan reserved his decision on an application by Mediahuis and Ms Breen asking him to strike out Mr Lappin’s claims of defamation and injurious falsehood against them.
Mr Lappin also alleges breaches of his privacy and data protection against Mediahuis UK, but these were not part of the strike-out application.
Earlier, he was told by Mediahuis that Ms Dudley Edwards was not an employee and was tweeting from her personal account.
The media group’s senior counsel, Ronan Kennedy, told the judge the article in question is “not about the plaintiff at all” and the meaning Mr Lappin claims can be inferred from it “stretches credulity”.
Mr Lappin, who is also a school teacher, is not named in the article, but he is in a group photograph accompanying it that Mediahuis says was taken at the 2019 Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh Christmas party.
Mr Kennedy said it is not usual practice, as was suggested by the other side, to blur out the faces of individuals who are not the subject of the article. Instead, the newspaper circled in red the two with whom the reporting was concerned, he said.
The words of the article, said counsel, are “not reasonably capable” of bearing the meanings pleaded by Mr Lappin in his legal documents.
The legal test the court must apply is whether a reasonable reader would come to the conclusion advanced by Mr Lappin.
There is “absolutely no reference to the plaintiff” in the article, Mr Kennedy said, adding that the court must consider the article, which includes the photograph, “as a whole”.
The claim of injurious falsehood bears no reasonable cause of action and/or is bound to fail, he submitted.
Mr Lappin’s senior counsel, Thomas Hogan, said the court must decide if it would be perverse for a jury to find in favour of his client based on the meaning of the article.
The publisher chose to publish the photograph without pixelating the faces of those not relevant to the piece, including Mr Lappin who was “front and centre” in the frame, Mr Hogan said.
The newspaper’s intention is “irrelevant”, he said, adding that one can “incidentally defame someone but defame them nonetheless”.
Mr Hogan said that if his client’s case is not pleaded properly he should be given an opportunity to amend the pleadings.
The judge said he would give his decision at a later date.
