Defamation Case: Marina Salo vs AAmazing Webhosting and Patrick Holtz

Running head: BUSINESS LAW
Business Law
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Basic Facts and Summary..............................................................................................2
Issues..............................................................................................................................2
Issue 1: Can plaintiff successfully sue the defendant/defendants for defamation?....2
Sub issue 1: does the plaintiff have standing to sue?.............................................4
Sub issue 2: does plaintiff have a prima facie cause of action against the
defendant/ defendants?.......................................................................................................4
Sub issue 2a: has a defamatory statement actually made?.....................................6
Sub issue 2b: Has the matter been published by the Defendant?...........................7
Sub issue 2c: The matter identifies, or is capable of identifying, the plaintiff as
the person defamed............................................................................................................7
Issue 2: Any defences available to defendant............................................................8
Issue 3: Remedies.......................................................................................................9
Conclusion......................................................................................................................9
Bibliography.................................................................................................................10

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Basic Facts and Summary
Marina Salo, the plaintiff of the defamation case states that she has been defamed by
AAmazing Webhosting and Patrick Holtz. Patrick Holtz has put up a defamatory article on
Marina on the AAmazing Webhosting website called Qld Corruption Files, along with a
signboard in front of his house that asks people to read his article on the AAmazing
Webhosting website and also refers to Marina being a corrupt as a CEO of the Assisting
Homeless Inc.
Marina Salo and Patrick Holtz were classmates at the Queensland University and he
have had personal grudges against Marina for years which he has been taking out lately on
the internet as well as by erecting the signboard. Marina intends to contest the situation at a
court of law. Therefore, in this regard, the issues, applicable law and its application on the
case needs to be discussed pertaining to defamation and its defences, finally citing a
conclusion that can be expected from the litigation.
Issues
Issue 1: Can plaintiff successfully sue the defendant/defendants for defamation?
Rule
Defamation is said to take place when the defendant communicates anything
defamatory or demeaning about a plaintiff to a third party, orally or in writing, by way of
cartoons, pictures, posters, advertisements, internet postings, et cetera; degrading the
reputation or goodwill of the plaintiff as held in Monson v Tussauds Ltd1. A prima facie
cause of action can be brought against the defendant if it is found that the defendant has
communicated the defamatory statement with a third person that is related to the plaintiff2.
1 Monson v Tussauds Ltd [1894] 1 QB 671, 692.
2 M Davies and I Malkin, Focus: Torts (LexisNexis, 8th ed, 2017).

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It becomes necessary to determine whether the defamatory statement was of such
nature that it could have been easily understood by any ordinary reasonable reader and
such person would think less of the plaintiff based on the defamatory statement as discussed
in Farquhar v Bottom3.
As discussed in the case of Chakravarti v Advertiser Newspapers Ltd it has been
discussed that the intention of the defendant is not important to establish the fact that he have
defamed the plaintiff4.
Free speech and defamation must be differentiated as the former involves
statements that are true to the best knowledge of the defendant who must have the evidence to
support it, while defamation involve statements that are false and mostly communicated with
an intention to degrade the reputation of the plaintiff5.
Application
In the given case, Marina Salo has been defamed by Patrick Holtz in his article
published under the AAmazing Webhosting website called Qld Corruption Files. The article
clearly mentions that Marina Salo, the CEO of the charity organisation, the Assisting
Homeless Inc. is of bad moral character as she was involved in student cheating scandal in
her college days in the Queensland University. He accuses Marina of being indiscipline and
dishonest which are serious allegations. He also points out that her grades were high even
though her notes were ‘bad’. As per the elements of defamation, Holtz put out statements that
are degrading for Marina’s reputation.
Holtz had put up a billboard that points out the corruption involved with the ‘CEO’ of
the ‘Logan homeless assistance charity’, which was pointing directly towards Marina Salo.
The billboard mentioned the web link of the article that Holtz had put up in the AAmazing
Webhosting website called Qld Corruption Files that had the elaborate defamatory
3 Farquhar v Bottom (1980) 2 NSWLR 380 by Hunt J at [20].
4 Chakravarti v Advertiser NewspapersLtd (1998) 193 CLR 519 at 545.
5 M Davies and I Malkin, Focus: Torts (LexisNexis, 8th ed, 2017).