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The Claimant brought libel proceedings against the Defendant arising from a Facebook post published by the Defendant:
"Went out tonight in my village for the first time in nearly 2 years since my husband died, I have not been able to go out because people who used to be my friend have decided to support my mother in law, a women who has tried to make me homeless and continually told lies about me. Anyone who really knows me knows I am not capable of what she is accusing me off. I no longer want anything to do with anyone who is friends with her so goodbye I shall be deleting you."
The Court determined the natural and ordinary meaning of the post as follows:
- The Defendant had not been able to socialise in her village for nearly two years because formerly mutual friends had taken sides against her and in favour of the Claimant in a dispute between them.
- The Claimant had been trying to deprive the Defendant of her home.
- The Claimant had been telling lies about the Defendant.
The Defendant applied to strike out the libel claim, arguing it was bound to fail / should never have been made, as the Claimant had not shown (and could not show) serious harm to her reputation, as required by section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013.
The Court agreed with the Defendants submissions, finding the Claimant's pleading of serious harm defective in several respects:
- The particulars of serious harm did not address the reputational impact of the publication on the mind of its readers, instead they focused on the Claimant's own subjective reaction. The Court held that the Claimant failed to plead serious harm for the purposes of the statutory test, which is an objective one.
- The specific examples of serious harm advanced within the pleadings, were not set out with adequate particularity or coherence. The Court held that the pleading related to a unparticularised partisan response to the post and did not address the serious harm test.
- The pleading failed to set out a factual groundwork capable of supporting an inferential case of serious reputational harm. The Court held that the pleading of an inferential case of serious harm fell a long way short of the necessary particularity, substance and inherent logical probability required.
The Court decided that the Claimant's pleading of serious harm failed to comply with the requirements pursuant to the Practice Direction and therefore failed to properly advance a case of serious harm. The entire claim would therefore be bound to fail and was struck out.
This decision underlines the Court's strict approach to the serious harm threshold in defamation proceedings. Claimants must plead clear, specific, and objectively grounded facts demonstrating serious reputational damage. Failure to do so risks early strike-out of the claim, particularly where the statutory requirements have not been fulfilled.
The link to the full Tattersal v Tattersal judgment can be found here: Tattersall v Tattersall [2025] EWHC 2558 (KB) (08 October 2025)
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