The Cost of a “Facebook” Libel

An interesting case in this week’s news about a woman who accused her ex-husband of “trying to kill her” on Facebook, who lost both a High Court libel case in 2016 and more recently, an appeal against that verdict, has been left with a legal bill estimated to be £200,000.

The story of Nicola Stocker and her former husband, businessman Ronald Stocker, is a warning to all those who underestimate or ignore social media as a publishing platform and proceed to make defamatory postings.

In Mrs Stocker’s case, the Facebook exchange was between her and Deborah Bligh, Mr Stocker’s new partner, and took place in December 2012.

Mr Stocker, won the original libel case when Mr Justice Mitting ruled the comments painted him, wrongly, as a “dangerous and thoroughly disreputable man” and that the libel was “not trivial”. In that case, appropriate compensation was assessed at £5,000 – though Mr Stocker was only to clear his reputation and would not accept the damages award from his ex-wife.

Mrs Stocker appealed Mr Justice Mitting’s ruling, however, earlier this week, at the Court of Appeal, her case was (again) rejected by three senior judges.

One of those judges, Lady Justice Sharp commented on the “intentional” nature of the libellous act; that Mrs Stocker deliberately posted “without thinking about who else might see what she posted” and commented further on the fact that the parties had ended up in court as they were unable to resolve the matter through alternative dispute resolution, including mediation, which in this case, had proved to be unsuccessful.

The defamatory allegations about Mr Stocker were published to a group of 21 individuals who had authorised access to the Facebook page. They were also visible to 110 of Ms Bligh’s “friends” and to their Facebook “friends”. The court held that Mrs Stocker had no right to assume it was a private post and that although there were instances where Mr Stocker did “in temper” attempt to silence his ex-wife, he had not threatened to kill her and therefore her Facebook comments had a defamatory meaning.

The appeal judges agreed with this original ruling. They confirmed that Mrs Stocker was “the originator of the libel, she was aware that the particular Facebook platform concerned was a semi-public one and she deliberately posted on that platform without thinking about who else might see what she posted.”

This case is interesting in that it highlights a few key points about posting on social media: