Legal types may argue endlessly about the judicial reasoning behind Federal Court judge Michael Lee’s decision to award $280,000 to Elaine Stead, the former director and head of venture capital at failed investment fund Blue Sky Alternative Investments, for two relatively short but vituperative items written by Rear Window columnist Joe Aston in The Australian Financial Review.

Far be it for the editors of the Financial Review to challenge the fine legal reasoning in Justice Lee’s 97-page judgment. Rather than the legal reasoning per se, however, this is a case study in defamation law as it has evolved in Australia.