ABSTRACT
Serious harm to reputation has been an element of the cause of action in defamation across Australia, except for Western Australia, for under five years. Yet already, serious harm has had a significant effect on Australian defamation law. This article considers the actual and potential consequences of the introduction of serious harm. In doing so, it argues that serious harm represents more of a revolution than an evolution in Australian defamation law. This is particularly so because it impliedly abolishes the presumption of damage to reputation, which fundamentally changes the way in which reputation is conceived of, and protected by, the tort of defamation. Serious harm now brings forward consideration of the plaintiff’s reputation as a matter going to liability rather than deferring it as a matter going to damages and focuses on the actual impact on the plaintiff’s reputation rather than presuming harm. The effects of this revolution in thinking about reputation in defamation law will need to be carefully thought through in the years to come.
David Rolph, Serious Harm to Reputation: Evolution or Revolution? (2026) 49(2) University of New South Wales Law Journal 335.
Leave a Reply