Hong Kong Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Hong Kong Case Law

Fair comment / honest opinion

  • 23 Mar 2015

    LEE SAU LAI ALEXANDRETTA AND ANOTHER v. LI SAU SANG

    Citation
    LEE SAU LAI ALEXANDRETTA AND ANOTHER v. LI SAU SANG
    Court
    District Court
    Case number
    DCCJ2191/2012

    Reading the email chains as a whole a reasonable non-naïve reader would find the publications defamatory (they imputed that each plaintiff abused her position to intimidate, oppress and harass staff and engaged in 'witch-hunting' creating 'white terror'). The defence of fair comment failed because the later emails constituted imputations of fact not opinion and the publications were not on a matter of public interest in the sense relied upon. Qualified privilege failed because the emails were sent to many recipients without a corresponding duty/interest and included management and non-union r…

  • 27 May 2009

    FUNG TAK KEUNG v. HIEW KWAI FOOK AND ANOTHER

    Citation
    FUNG TAK KEUNG v. HIEW KWAI FOOK AND ANOTHER
    Court
    District Court
    Case number
    DCCJ5738/2007

    The court found the words, read in context, imputed a possible future act and thus were not slander actionable per se; alternatively the defendants genuinely believed the plaintiff had assaulted the complainant based on the complainant's injuries, medical records and police complaint, so the defence of justification succeeded; the words were also uttered sarcastically in a heated AGM context and did not bear a literal defamatory meaning; accordingly the defendants' defences succeeded and the plaintiff's claim was dismissed.