Internet publication (page 204)

The rule established in 1849 in Duke of Brunswick v Harmer — that each individual act of publication gives rise to a new cause of action — was effectively overturned by the Court of Appeal today in Yousef Abdul Latif Jameel v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] EWCA Civ 75. The decision will be welcomed by all on-line publishers.

Giving the judgment of the court, Lord Phillips, Master of the Rolls, said (at paragraph 56):

We do not believe that Brunswick v Harmer could today have survived an application to strike out for abuse of process. The Duke himself procured the republication to his agent of an article published many years before for the sole purpose of bringing legal proceedings that would not be met by a plea of limitation. If his agent read the article he is unlikely to have thought the Duke much, if any, the worse for it and, to the extent that he did, the Duke brought this on his own head. He acquired a technical cause of action but we would today condemn the entire exercise as an abuse of process.

Posted at February 3, 2005 02:00 PM