Vassall-Adams: Reviews defamatory at common law
A law firm owner is suing a former probate executive she employed for defamation over reviews left on two websites, as part of a wider dispute that involves another solicitor.
After a preliminary hearing, Deputy High Court Judge Guy Vassall-Adams KC held [1] that the three reviews were defamatory of Elaine Liddle, but not of her Croydon law firm, B&L Solicitors.
Preliminary hearings on the meaning of allegedly defamatory statements have become standard in libel cases so that the parties know where they stand and what defences could be deployed at trial.
She is suing Shanaz Niazi, who worked for B&L as a probate executive for about two months from December 2022.
Separately, Ms Liddle and B&L have brought proceedings for breach of contract, breach of confidence and unlawful means conspiracy against both Ms Niazi and Elizabeth Radcliffe, a retired solicitor who was the principal of Rowe Radcliffe, a high street law firm in Surrey that closed in 2023.
She alleges that Ms Niazi took client files and will banks from B&L and conspired with Ms Radcliffe “to advance their own economic interests” at the expense of Ms Liddle’s.
The pair deny the allegations, the judge recounted, with Ms Niazi saying that she started working at B&L in the expectation of working for a new firm that Ms Liddle said she was setting up.
She submits that Ms Liddle was actually only interested in acquiring the clients she brought from a previous firm and to get access to will banks that had originally belonged to Ms Radcliffe.
On her case, Ms Niazi did nothing wrong in taking her clients and documents she was entitled to retain with her.
The court heard that, in 2024, Ms Niazi published a one-star review on the website ‘Review a Solicitor’ (not to be confused with ReviewSolicitors) and two on a website called Birdseye Reviews.
In all three, she made serious allegations about Ms Liddle’s honesty and integrity, both as a solicitor in general and in relation to Ms Radcliffe’s will bank.
Judge Vassall-Adams accepted that the ordinary reasonable reader would recognise that the allegations were made by a disgruntled former employee.
They would “form the impression that [Ms Niazi] is someone with an axe to grind. However, it does not follow that the ordinary reasonable reader wouldn’t take the allegations seriously.
“Here we are dealing with allegations by someone who worked with [Ms Liddle], who has first-hand knowledge of the events she describes and would be well-placed to provide an insider’s view.
“In the circumstances, I think the ordinary reasonable reader would take the allegations seriously.”
Each review made allegations that impugned Ms Liddle’s “honesty, integrity and professionalism” and were defamatory at common law, he ruled. Each contained mixed statements of fact and opinion, and some purely of opinion.
“These are serious allegations to level at any person, particularly a professional person whose business depends on securing the trust of the general public.”
However, Judge Vassall-Adams found that the pleaded meaning of the reviews in relation to B&L was simply that prospective clients should not retain its services “and existing clients should cease to do so”.
He went on: “I have some difficulty with this as a defamatory meaning; it feels more like a conclusion that some readers might arrive at after reading certain defamatory statements, rather than a defamatory meaning, in and of itself.
“In any event, having looked at each review separately, I don’t think the ordinary reasonable reader would take this meaning from any of the reviews. The focus of the reviews is on [Ms Liddle] and things she is alleged to have done, or failed to do.”
The claimants argued that this was reference by association, as Ms Liddle was the only solicitor at B&L.
But they had not pleaded a meaning consistent with this argument, the judge said, ruling that the reviews were not defamatory of B&L at common law. As a result, it did not have its own libel claim.
Last year, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal suspended Ms Radcliffe [2] from practice for 12 months over multiple accounts rules breaches.