Cases

Collins Stewart Limited & Another v The Financial Times Ltd (No 2)

Held

(1) Despite the wording of the pleading, which used phrases such as “the negative impact” of the original article being “reinforced” by the follow-up articles and the “ongoing damage being exacerbated”, in truth the claim had the ring of a claim for aggravated damages. (2) There were sound reasons of principle and practice why a corporate claimant should not be entitled to recover aggravated damages. The defining characteristic of an award of aggravated damages is that its function is to provide a claimant with compensation ("solatium") for injury to his or her feelings caused by some conduct on the part of the defendant or for which the defendant is responsible. The essence of an award of aggravated damages in libel is to compensate the claimant for any extra injury to his/her feelings. Since a company has no feelings to injure and cannot suffer distress (see Lewis v Daily Telegraph [1964] AC 234), aggravated damages are not available to a corporate claimant.

Also