england-and-wales defamation libel
What is the smallest audience for a communication that has been deemed capable of defamation?
<p>Descriptions of the criteria for defamation seem widely to describe any statement that is communicated to a third party as being defamatory if they are (broadly speaking) false and harmful.</p>
<p>This seems to allow for the possibility that relatively private communications can be deemed defamatory, even though most high-profile defamation cases involve public statements accessible to large if not unlimited audiences. Of course, the smaller the audience the more unusual it seems likely to be that such a communication could meet the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/1" rel="noreferrer">serious harm test of the Defamation Act 2013</a>, yet it doesn't seem impossible that the right lie told to the right person could yet have serious enough consequences to be defamatory.</p>
<p>Are there examples of very small-scale communications that have been tested for their ability to defame?</p>
<p>Tagged <a href="/questions/tagged/england-and-wales" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;england-and-wales&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;england-and-wales&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-england-and-wales-tooltip-container">england-and-wales</a> since inspired by Nigel Farage's <a href="https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1683140521064103942" rel="noreferrer">claim</a> that internal correspondence shared internally between employees of a bank were defamatory, but other jurisdictions welcome too.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/canada" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-canada-tooltip-container">canada</a></p>
<p>Damages for libel have been awarded based on publication to a single individual.</p>
<p>The elements of defamation are (<em>Grant v. Torstar Corp.</em>, <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7837/index.do" rel="noreferrer">2009 SCC 61</a>, para. 28):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(1) that the impugned words were defamatory, in the sense that they would tend to lower the plaintiff’s reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person; (2) that the words in fact referred to the plaintiff; and (3) that the words were published, meaning that they were <strong>communicated to at least one person other than the plaintiff</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For an example, see <em>Faryna v. Chorny</em>, <a href="https://canlii.ca/t/gc4lv" rel="noreferrer">[1952] 2 D.L.R. 354</a> (B.C.C.A). A letter &quot;imputing unchastity&quot; of a housekeeper was sent to a single individual.</p>

<h2>1</h2>
<p><a href="/questions/tagged/australia" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;australia&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;australia&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-australia-tooltip-container">australia</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>To be defamatory, the material has to be published (communicated by any means, including written, orally, pictorially) <strong>to at least one person</strong> other than the person making the claim.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.artslaw.com.au/information-sheet/defamation-law/" rel="noreferrer">Arts Law Information Sheet</a></p>
<p>Whether disclosure to one person can cause real harm depends on what is told and to whom. A lie to a (prospective) employer, University admissions officer, or security service vetting agent could be very damaging.</p>

<p>Consider the case of Oscar Wilde v the Marquess of Queensbury, which has become a text-book example.</p>
<p>Queensbury handed to a porter at Wilde's club a calling card on which he'd written something like 'To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite [sic].(accounts vary, but not relevantly.)</p>
<p>The people actually seeing the comment on the card might have included only the porter but a potentially much larger audience was undoubted.</p>
<p>The law being more stringent back in 1895, Queensbury was apparently arrested and criminally charged with libel.</p>
<p>As it happens, Wilde lost his case on the grounds that Queensbury's remark was not defamatory but rather, true but even that is not relevant.</p>
<p>What matters is that the card was left lying around the club and might have been seen by anyone picking it up and turning it over - or simply by the porter to whom it was actually given.</p>
<p>That is to say, the audience need be no larger than 'perhaps one or more'.</p>
<p>Of course if it was established that the audience was in fact no more than one, damages would be correspondingly small and but the degree of defamation is not the point: libel did or dit not occur.</p>
