Denis O\u2019Brien\u2019s appeal to a High Court jury\u2019s award of \u20ac823,500 to two lawyers the businessman defamed in a 2016 press release has been struck out.<\/p>\n
Last November, the jury found O\u2019Brien and his long-time spokesman James Morrissey had defamed Darragh Mackin and Gavin Booth in the statement that implied the Belfast-based solicitors acted for the IRA.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien made the statement in response to a report on media ownership in Ireland, which was co-authored by Mackin and Booth. The statement contained the words: \u201cSinn F\u00e9in\/IRA certainly got the report they paid for\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien and Morrissey were ordered to pay the lawyers \u20ac411,750 each to compensate the damage done to the solicitors\u2019 reputations arising from the defamation.<\/p>\n
The jury\u2019s award of damages fell within the category for \u201cvery serious\u201d instances of defamation, as outlined in Supreme Court guidelines.<\/p>\n
After the jury decision, lawyers for both men lodged a challenge to the award at the Court of Appeal. They submitted the award shouldn\u2019t have been in the range for \u201cvery serious\u201d defamation.<\/p>\n
Their challenge to the award was listed before the Court of Appeal on Friday, in advance of the hearing of the appeal.<\/p>\n
Mark Harty, appearing for Mackin and Booth, told court president Judge Caroline Costello the appeal could be struck out.<\/p>\n
He said there was no order sought in respect of the legal costs of the appeal.<\/p>\n
Joe Holt, barrister for O\u2019Brien and Morrissey, said his side was consenting to the order.<\/p>\n
The judge made the order as sought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denis O\u2019Brien\u2019s appeal to a High Court jury\u2019s award of \u20ac823,500 to two lawyers the businessman defamed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-555259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}