Tesco must pay defamed lawyer

A JUDGE has ordered Tesco to pay a former All-Ireland winning hurler €7,500 in damages after finding the British retail giant had defamed the man.

At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Donagh McDonagh awarded the damages and costs to solicitor Patrick Moroney (33) arising from an incident where he was accused by a Tesco employee of trying to buy a bottle of wine for a minor.

In the incident at the Tesco store at Corbally, Ardnacrusha, on November 28th, 2010, Anne Devlin said to Mr Moroney “you might as well be buying it for the children on the street” when refusing to sell him a bottle of wine.

Mr Moroney had gone to the Tesco store to buy the wine after his girlfriend, Clair Hayes (then 25), had been refused alcohol after she failed to produce ID.

In evidence, Mr Moroney told the court he was “absolutely mortified” and “extremely embarrassed” when Ms Devlin refused to sell him the wine and accused him of trying to buy it for a minor.

Mr Moroney operates a legal practice in Limerick and Scarriff. The Scarriff man won an All-Ireland hurling minor medal with Clare in 1997 and has also represented the county at senior level in hurling.

In the case, all-star and former Limerick senior hurling captain Ollie Moran gave character evidence on Mr Moroney’s behalf.

In his judgment yesterday, Judge McDonagh said Ms Devlin’s words “were unnecessary and undoubtedly inflammatory and their intent seemed to me was to put Mr Moroney in his place”.

Tesco mounted the defence of qualified privilege in the defamation action. Ronnie Robins SC, for Tesco, had stated that qualified privilege failed when malice is shown, claiming that Mr Moroney had failed to prove that there had been malice.

Judge McDonagh ruled that qualified privilege did not apply as Mr Moroney had proven that Ms Devlin’s words “were uttered with an improper motive and thus come within the scope of malice”.