Defamation Claim

[Guest]

Please can County Court hear a defamation claim?

[ULA]

Claims for defamation can only be made in the High Court.

[Circle]

Defamation claims can be made in the County court, but only if both sides agree. The pre action protocol has to be followed and a letter of claim sent first . You do not say if you are the Claimant or Defendant, but my advice is dont. ! The only person who really wins on defamation claims are the solicitors

[efpom]

Per s.18 of the County Courts Act 1984 the parties can agree to give the county court jurisdiction in their dispute. However, in defamation actions, that agreement of the parties is not sufficient to trump s.15 of the Act which states at (c) that the county court does not have jurisdiction on claims for libel or slander.

It follows, that a claim in defamation can only be started in the High court, but the High court per s. 40 of the Act does have the power to transfer the case to the county court. By this route, the county court could have jurisdiction to hear a defamation case. That does happen, on occasion see e.g. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/594.html

[EXC]

We had a case in 2016 where one of our members was issued a defamation claim in the County Court. LegalBeagles


We made an application to strike out the claim on the basis of the jurisdiction. I attended the hearing on behalf of the defendant and this was the result.

ALICE Judgment.jpg