NEWSFLASH: BCA surrenders, Simon Singh wins libel case by default

[major_clanger]

The British Chiropractic Association has discontinued its libel case against Simon Singh, following the devastating criticism handed down by the Court of Appeal earlier this month.

NB: Doing this (i.e. saying "sorry, I want to stop suing you now") typically involves undertaking to pay all the other side's costs to date.

Comments

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Excellent result.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I'll give them a call, tell them that I can get them back on their feet with a bit of manipulation...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I'd actually suggest some acupuncture.

From a drunken practitioner using rusty sewing needles.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Fantastic news.

[liadnan]

Good news but frankly I expected this: the CA judgment clearly left little room for them to succeed on the substance. Good choice of a prelim. issue. Wonder if they'll get an indemnity basis order.

[rosenkavalier.livejournal.com]

That's excellent news!

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Well, that pretty much puts paid to abusing libel laws to stifle scientific debate - but where does it leave Mr Justice Eady's credibility?

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

He had any?

More seriously though, it's going to make the scientific side of the libel industry look a bit less secure. Any lawyers starting new cases where the defence can appeal to scientific arguments are going to be a lot more nervous about losing, and this result may well have a chilling effect on them. Whether that's actually good news or not is another matter - libel law reform might be damaged by arguments that "we don't need to reform after all, since the courts are now coming to saner judgements".

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Even lower that it was before, which is something of a feat.

He is only three years from statutory retirement age for judges (70) so I suspect that he will stew away in his little corner of the Queen's Bench Division for that time and then depart. With any luck the apparent cross-bench support for libel reform may mean that the practise of allocating almost all defamation cases to one particular judge will cease.

[multiclassgeek.livejournal.com]

Let's hope so.

And let's hope the Libel Reform goes full steam ahead in the next Parliament

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

the privacy cases too do you think?

I'm counting the days till the BCA sue their lawyers for misadvice:-)

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I actually think some of his decisions were correct. That in the Max Mosley looks sensible, as does that in the Google libel case.

[liadnan]

I think that quite a lot of his decisions were correct, the Moseley one being a prime example. I'm also wildly unconvinced that we need substantial changes to the law of libel, save in the field of costs (which is underway anyway) and in particular disagree with large parts of the PEN report. I used to think that the burden of proof should be reversed, which is one of their points, but the Murat case changed my mind on that (should it really have been for him to prove that he was *not* a paedophile?).

His decision on the preliminary issue in this case was in my view clearly wrong as a matter of law(though it's fair to say a lot of lawyers did take a different view) but the court of appeal sorted that out, which is kind of what it's for.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

What credibility is that then?

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Any excuse to trot out this old chestnut...

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[watervole.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

I hope he does get his costs back. Scientists should not have that kind of financial pressure brought to bear on them for simply stating the obvious.

[ianmcdonald.livejournal.com]

great result. The Grauniad seemed to think that Simon Singh might be out of pocket himself by about £20K.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Which, considering as they published the article in question and then declined to help defend him, one might hope they would recompense to him.