Nationwide News loses appeal in Geoffrey Rush defamation case
A court has dismissed an appeal against a decision to award actor Geoffrey Rush nearly $2.9 million after it found The Daily Telegraph defamed him.
Nationwide News has lost its appeal against the decision to award Geoffrey Rush nearly $2.9 million after a court found it had defamed the actor in two articles published in 2017.
On Thursday three Federal Court justices dismissed the appeal, which argued Justice Michael Wigney had erred in ruling Mr Rush had been defamed in two editions of The Daily Telegraph newspaper, published on November 30, 2017 and December 1, 2017, and a billboard poster.
The stories dealt with a complaint of inappropriate behaviour made by an unnamed actress against Mr Rush. That actress was later identified as Erin Jean Norvill who co-starred with Rush in a production of King Lear in Sydney in 2015 and 2016.
Nationwide News, publishers of The Daily Telegraph, had also appealed against the award of $2,872,753.10 to Mr Rush, arguing that the figure was excessive.
The payout will be the largest of its kind for a defamation lawsuit in Australian history.
In April 2019, Justice Wigney found the articles falsely painted Mr Rush – one of the country’s most well-known actors – as a “pervert”, a ”sexual predator” and conveyed he engaged in “scandalously inappropriate” behaviour during the King Lear production.
He also found Ms Norvill to be an unreliable witness prone to “exaggeration and embellishment”. Nationwide News had relied on Ms Norvill’s evidence in defending the stories as true.
During the trial, Ms Norvill alleged Mr Rush made groping gestures towards her and claimed he touched her breasts during one scene on stage.
On appeal Nationwide News’ barrister Tom Blackburn SC argued there was insufficient evidence to support the payout and accused Mr Rush of “delivering lines” in the witness box.
Mr Blackburn also contested Justice Wigney’s ruling that Ms Norvill was an unreliable witness, and the decision not to allow evidence from Orange is the New Black star Yael Stone - referred to as ‘Witness X’ - to be heard in the trial.
News abandoned a further ground of appeal claiming Justice Wigney’s conduct gave rise to apprehended bias, denying the publisher procedural fairness.
Justices White, Gleeson and Wheelahan agreed with Justice Wigney’s ruling that ordinary readers would be likely to consider a person who engaged in the conduct conveyed in the stories to be a “pervert”.
“(P)articularly in so far as it concerned behaving as a sexual predator, and a man’s use of authority or stature in the workplace to obtain sexual gratification by inappropriately touching a non-consenting co-worker,” their written reasons state.
The full court also ruled Justice Wigney did not err in considering Ms Norvill unreliable.
“The full court did not accept that the judge had overlooked difficulties which Ms Norvill may have experienced in giving evidence as a person complaining of sexual assault and sexual harassment,” the judgment states.
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