A recent High Court judgment between Yvonne Tattersall, an Emmy-winning designer and costumier, and Elizabeth Lynette Tattersall, an interior designer, has been widely reported in the national press and sees the Courts revisit the test of “serious harm” in the context of a breakdown in family relationships. 

The case arose following a breakdown in a once amicable family relationship between the Defendant and daughter-in-law (Yvonne), and the Claimant and mother-in-law (Elizabeth Lynette) immediately following the death of the Claimant’s son in 2019. The Claimant and Defendant’s relationship deteriorated amid disagreements over their late son/husband’s estate and financial matters, including around the purchase of a home the Defendant had shared with the deceased.  That dispute resulted in legal proceedings being issued in the County Court, in which the Yvonne was ordered to pay sums to the Lynette from her late husband’s estate.

The Defendant made a singular Facebook post on her personal account, which later became the centre of a libel claim.

The Post

The Facebook Post was published by the Defendant in early September 2021, and deleted around the time that the County Court proceedings concluded in February 2023.

Broadly, the Post stated the Defendant’s feelings of being unable to socialise in her village for the couple years since her husband’s death, as friends had decided to support her mother-in-law, who had “tried to make me homeless and continually told lies about me”.  The Post received at least 57 reactions from Facebook users. The Claimant issued proceedings in September 2022, seeking damages and injunctive relief, stating that the Post had caused others to distance themselves from her.

Serious harm

Following a Preliminary Issue hearing on the “meaning” of the Post, the Defendant applied to strike out or summarily dismiss the claim without the need for a trial, on the basis that the Claimant was unable to show that the Post caused or was likely to cause serious harm to her reputation.  The Court found that the Claimant did not have a real prospect of establishing serious reputational harm at a trial, as required by s.1 of the Defamation Act 2013.

Mrs Justice Collins Rice struck out the claim for a lack of evidence of serious harm caused to the Claimant’s reputation, and that the Claimant’s pleading failed to comply with the requirements of PD 53B in failing to meet the requirement under s.1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 and did not give the Defendant an adequate account of a case on serious harm.

Section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 states as follows:  A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.

The “serious harm” requirement discourages trivial claims that are not a good use of Court resources by requiring claimants to show that a publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to their reputation. This must be supported by evidence rather than assumption.

The Court found that the specific examples of harm that the Claimant had included lacked sufficient particularisation as to impact to the Claimant’s reputation and what in fact took place.   It is a reminder of the need to set out the factual background to support a claim.

The Court here agreed that the Claimant could not show that the singular post, to roughly 50 people who the Defendant knew personally, had caused, or was likely to cause, serious reputational damage. Despite the meaning of the words in the Post having a defamatory tendency, the Judge found no real evidence that the Claimant’s standing in the wider community had suffered as a result. This supported the strict interpretation of the serious harm threshold following the leading case of Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2019].  The serious harm test requires a claimant to present or plead evidence of real-world effects, beyond the inherent defamatory tendency of the words.  Here, the Judge found that the Claimant’s pleading focused on her subjective reactions to the Post, rather than addressing the objective statutory test.

The Court held that there was insufficient evidence of serious harm to the reputation.  In the context of a family dispute, it was noted that where those who might have read the Post were close friends or family members, it was inherently improbable that they may form an adverse view of the Claimant on the basis of the single Post, and in the context of the known breakdown in the family relationship.    The Court held that the prospects of the Claimant supporting an inferential case were unrealistic. 

As a result, the Defendant’s application for strike out and summary judgment succeeded.  The Court felt that allowing the litigation to continue risked interference with freedom of expression that was not necessary to protect the Claimant’s reputation.

Serious harm and family disputes

Family disputes often occur in private settings.  They can, however, lead to more public fallouts as people take to social media to express their personal views.  Whilst in this case, the Court held that the Claimant was unable to establish serious harm, it is important to remember that a single Tweet/X or social media post could risk a claim in defamation.     

What renders this case particularly striking is that it followed the County Court dispute regarding property and ownership, with the libel claim becoming an extension of the family conflict.