Cases

Marks & Spencer plc v Granada Television Ltd

Comment

This is an interim decision from the pre-trial review. The case is more notable for Popplewell J's decision to take a preliminary verdict on meaning from the jury at the commencement of the trial. At one stage it was thought that this practice might revolutionalise libel trials and it was even commended to practitioners by Hirst LJ in Shah v Standard Chartered Bank [1999] QB 241. However, perhaps because the jury in the case surprised everyone by rejecting the parties' two meanings and coming up with a meaning of their own, the practice has never been repeated.

Areas of work

Defamation
Media Law
Publishing

Also