The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Independent Newspapers against a High Court decision awarding costs against the company, estimated at €100,000, to a District Court judge who was libelled in a Sunday Independent article.
Judge Joseph Mangan was awarded €25,000 in damages after a High Court jury found in February 2002 he was libelled in a front-page article in the Sunday Independent, written by journalist Gene Kerrigan and published in March 1998. The jury held that the article, which referred to the judge taking a call on a mobile phone, bore the defamatory meaning that Judge Mangan had acted in a manner inconsistent with the proper discharge of his judicial functions.
In the High Court in February last year, Ms Justice Carroll granted costs on the Circuit Court scale to Judge Mangan against Independent Newspapers for the case which had been heard in the High Court over five days in February 2002 and two days in a previous trial which was aborted in 2000.
She put a stay on her order for costs and on the award of damages in the event of an appeal. The stay was on condition that interest was paid from the date of the award if the appeal is unsuccessful.
Independent Newspapers appealed the costs ruling to the Supreme Court which yesterday dismissed the appeal and upheld the costs order.
Giving the court's reserved judgment, Mr Justice McCracken said the High Court had correctly limited the costs of Judge Mangan to Circuit Court costs. He said the High Court judge correctly exercised discretion in refusing to speculate on the length of a Circuit Court hearing and also on the basis that a lot of time was taken up by reason of the unjustifiable defences raised by Independent Newspapers.
The decision was not an improper exercise of the High Court judge's discretion. It was also relevant this was a libel action in which damages were determined by a jury, he added.