Aer Lingus pilot whose €387,000 defamation award was lower on attraction to €76,500 has had it elevated once more by Supreme Court

AN AER LINGUS pilot whose €387,000 defamation award by a jury was lower to €76,500 on attraction has had the award upped to €202,500 by the Supreme Court.

he new award to Captain Padraig Higgins, which incorporates €175,000 for normal damages, brings to an finish a nine-year authorized battle by the Airbus pilot.

In November 2019, Captain Higgins, who lives in Enfield, Co Meath, was discovered by a High Court jury to have been defamed by the Irish Aviation Authority in three emails despatched by the IAA in 2013.

The courtroom heard he was a senior Aer Lingus pilot who additionally flew single-engine plane in his spare time.

The emails had been despatched following an incident wherein he needed to make an emergency touchdown of a light-weight plane in Wales.

The emails, it was claimed, meant he had flown the plane unauthorised although his papers had been totally so as and in circumstances the place the UK Civil Aviation Authority, following an investigation, thought of the case closed.

The IAA ultimately provided an apology – which Captain Higgins mentioned got here six-a-half-years too late – and an “offer of amends” was made.

Ultimately, the matter of amends went earlier than a High Court jury which awarded him €387,000, together with €300,000 normal damages..

The IAA appealed and in June 2020, the Court of Appeal (CoA) lower it to €76,500, together with €70,000 for normal damages plus €6,500 in aggravated damages..

Captain Higgins requested for and was granted an extra attraction by the Supreme Court.

Today, a five-judge Supreme Court, in a four-to-one determination, allowed his attraction and substituted its personal award of €202,500, together with €175,000 normally damages.

The majority judgment was given by Mr Justice John MacMenamin, with whom Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne concurred, and with whom Ms Justice Marie Baker and Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe partially concurred and who additionally agreed with the substituted award.

Mr Justice Gerard Hogan dissented and mentioned an award of €103,500 whole damages was applicable.

The central points within the attraction included how the supply of amends process ought to function and what steerage a trial choose ought to give to a jury to help in figuring out damages in defamation.

There was additionally the difficulty of the right circumstances wherein an appellate courtroom ought to put aside the jury’s award.

Mr Justice MacMenamin mentioned the 2009 Defamation Act offered for an appellate courtroom to substitute its personal award because it thought of applicable.

There was no legislative intention, below the act, to change the pre-existing judicial follow of deference to jury awards, he mentioned.

Responding to Mr Justice Hogan’s observations on the difficulty of free speech versus defamation, Mr Justice MacMenamin mentioned that because the defamatory feedback on this case weren’t true, nor based mostly on perception, they weren’t topic to the identical constitutional safety as expressions of conviction or opinion.

He discovered, nevertheless, that in awarding the majority (€300,000) of the €387,000, the High Court had considerably departed from the suitable parameters of the case, and that it was not defamation within the highest vary of instances,

He determined that although the award ought to be put aside, it shouldn’t be remitted to be assessed by jury once more and {that a} courtroom shouldn’t stand in the best way of the general public curiosity in concluding a case.

He discovered the CoA was mistaken to chop normal damages to €70,000 for what was “very serious defamation” and the suitable determine for this was €175,000. Adding €50,000 for aggravated damages, and giving a 10pc low cost for the supply of amends by the IAA, this introduced the quantity to €202,500.

In his dissenting judgment, Mr Justice Hogan mentioned the legislation had moved on from the prior place the place appellate courts ought to be gradual to intervene with jury awards in defamation.

This mirrored the significance of the correct to free speech below the Constitution, he mentioned.

The Defamation Act confirmed that the Oireachtas supposed the judiciary to have a higher position in figuring out damages, he mentioned.

The defamation on this case fell into the “intermediate” class of defamation instances, such that an award of €100,000 for normal damages was extra applicable, he mentioned. He left the CoA’s €15,000 for aggravated damages undisturbed.

Giving a 10pc low cost for the supply of amends, the whole he would have awarded amounted to €103,500.