One of the well known maxims of the law of equity was central to a recent High Court decision. ‘Equity aids the vigilant, not those who sleep on their rights’ could be said to be the central message in the recent decision of William McClean v Sunday Newspapers Limited. This case highlighted how delay in progressing a case could be potentially fatal to a plaintiffs’ case, especially in a defamation action.
The case involved a newspaper article which was published in 2000 in the Sunday World. It had alleged certain things about the plaintiff including that he had tried to sell compromising photos of a woman who was quite well known to the media at that time.
Proceedings were issued within three months of the publication and were delivered over the following two years. However, nothing further happened for seven years and at that stage the plaintiff filed a Notice of Intention to Proceed to progress matters again.
After this, nothing further happened for a period of three years. The defendants brought an application to have the claim struck out on the grounds of delay in the action.
The plaintiff claimed that his delay was caused by a number of things including ill health and the fact that the defendants had not continued to publish anything of an alleged defamatory nature in relation to him for sometime. In his own words, he decided to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ The judge commented that ‘it was the longest of sleeps.’
The court considered three factors in coming to its decision:
1. Was the delay inordinate
2. Was the delay excusable
3. Even if the delay was inordinate and inexcusable, was the balance of justice in favour of or against the case proceeding
The court found that the delay was inordinate and inexcusable, especially as the proceedings concerned were defamation proceedings.
The judge made reference to the earlier case of Ewins v Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Limited [2003] and noted the particular onus on a plaintiff in defamation proceedings is to institute proceedings instantly and restore the damage that he sees to have been done to his reputation by the offending publication.
Therefore, one needs to be mindful to ‘not let sleeping dogs lie’ and to progress their case without delay in particular where the matter is of a defamatory nature. This is also reflected in the statutory time limits set out by the Defamation Act 2009 where the limitation period for such actions -from the date of the alleged defamation- is one year. This can be extended to a maximum of two years at the courts’ discretion.
If you would like some assistance or advice in relation to the above, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Katie Nugent,
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