31 Mar 2022
CATO v MANAIA MEDIA LIMITED [2022] NZHC 644
- Citation
- [2022] NZHC 644
- Court
- High Court
The replacement expert brief was admissible because it addressed the impact of the pleaded defamatory meanings on reputation by using how disciplinary bodies would treat such allegations as a legitimate proxy for the reaction of the legal community; this distinguishes it from the earlier excluded brief which assumed a disciplinary finding. The probative value outweighs the low risk of unfair prejudice under s8, but passages that express the expert's view of the publication's meaning or that assume disciplinary findings are inadmissible and must be struck out.