Restaurant owners win libel damages over scathing review after 11 year legal battle
Restaurant owners win libel damages over scathing review
after 11 year legal battle
Freedom of speech fears in Australia after newspaper
loses epic libel battle after restaurant collapsed
The review was followed by the closure of the restaurant
six months later
By Jonathan Pearlman 12:04PM BST 11 Jun 2014
An epic legal battle in Australia over a withering
restaurant review by a food critic has finally ended, with a newspaper forced
to pay $AUS623,526 [£349,000] for a notorious critique which described the pork
belly as “the porcine equal of a parched Weetbix [Weetabix]”
The 2003 review, by Matthew Evans, in the Sydney Morning
Herald of plush waterside restaurant Coco Roco provided colourful descriptions
of the “soggy blackberries”, “overcooked potatoes”, “outstandingly dull” roast
chicken and limoncello oysters that “jangle like a car crash”, before warning
readers – perhaps unnecessarily - to “stay home”.
“I've never had pork belly that could almost be described
as dry,” Evans noted. “Until tonight... Why anyone would put apricots in a
sherry-scented white sauce with a prime rib steak is beyond me.”
The review, which delivered a nine out of twenty rating,
was followed by the closure of the $AUS3 million (£1.7 million) restaurant six
months later and then a decade-long Bleak House-style defamation lawsuit. The
case went to two jury trials, a trial before a judge, two appeals, two special
leave applications to the High Court and a full High Court hearing.
One of the three restaurateurs, Ljiljana Gacic, a former
Miss Adriatic beauty queen, told the New South Wales Supreme Court she gained
nine stone and attempted suicide after the review; her sister and fellow
restaurateur, Aleksandra Gacic, said she could not walk for half an hour after
reading it.
The newspaper eventually lost the case after a court
ruled that the review failed to adequately point out that Coco Roco included
two restaurants and that Evans had eaten at the upmarket Coco and was not
reviewing the bistro-style Roco.
Evans had eaten at Coco the day after its grand opening
and again the following week along with a companion but – according to the
court – he never entered Roco.
His review of the “swank new eatery” did state: “Coco
Roco is actually two restaurants: Coco, the posh place upstairs off Lime
Street, and sibling Roco, also smartly fitted out on the foreshore. Forever in
pursuit of excellence, we choose the more expensive option. Expensive is
right.”
But a court ruled that “it was open to the [jury] to
conclude that an ordinary reasonable reader would have read the matter
complained of as referring to both restaurants”.
The saga finally ended last week when the New South Wales
Supreme Court made a ruling on interest on damages and came up with its final
figure of $AUS623,526, plus costs.
Justice Peter Hall noted the lengthy history of the case,
saying the hurt to feelings and damage to reputation continued because the
article remained online.
“The evidence establishes the defamatory article has
remained on the internet apart from one particular year,” the judge said.
“Such a continued publication over the years exacerbated
the injury and hurt by the plaintiffs and had the effect of perpetuating or
exacerbating the hurt to feelings and injury to reputation resulting from the
defamatory publication.”
Evans, who quit reviewing and moved to the island state
of Tasmania about six years ago, said the ruling marked “a sad day for
Australian food journalism”.
“I think reviewers and publications become fearful of
being sued,” he told The Hobart Mercury.
“You wouldn’t wish being sued on anybody, and being sued
for doing your job. The tragedy is I no longer write restaurant reviews.”
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