The Irish Daily Mirrorhad it coming in the way it reported the absurd story of alleged corruption concerning Denis O'Brien in 1998, in the way it responded to reasonable requests by Mr O'Brien, which would have resolved the issue at the beginning, and in the way it ran the case, both in the original hearing and in the re-hearing, writes Vincent Browne
But the legal mess that has resulted from the case is the fault of the Supreme Court.
The original Mirrorstory alleged that Denis O'Brien had bribed Ray Burke, then minister for communications, to obtain the radio licence for the Dublin station 98FM. It based this story on an anonymous letter.
It made no serious attempt to check it out. It, obviously, did not give the issue even a few moments of serious thought, for there would have been no point in bribing Ray Burke in the hope of getting a radio licence for he did not have the power to award a radio licence.
So the story was a reckless piece of journalism from the outset and was bound to get them into trouble.
But it could have got out of that trouble quickly had, even after the publication of the article, it had a bit of sense. But, alas!
The solicitor acting for Denis O'Brien, Paul Meagher, offered a settlement right at the beginning: a full retraction and apology, the payment of Denis O'Brien's legal fees up to that point (these would have been negligible at that point) and the payment of £30,000 to a nominated charity. The Mirrorsaid no, it was standing by its story.
It then ran the case on the basis that Denis O'Brien was a dodgy character anyway and, by inference, so what if the story they published was untrue? In other words, not alone did it besmirch his character by the publication of the story, it went on to make that worse by the way it ran the case. An award of damages of £250,000 was high, but given all the circumstances, not that high.
The Mirrorappealed this award to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court made an extraordinary judgment; it said that the matter of damages in a libel action was for a jury of "ordinary" (it did not use that word, but this is what it meant) people to decide.
Only such people could adjudicate on the scale of damage done to the character of the plaintiff, it was not a matter for judges, it was not a matter even for judges to give broad directions on what the award should be.
One of the judges of the court, Susan Denham, had stated in a previous judgment - the De Rossa case - that this was absurd. Of course, judges should give broad directions, but the majority of her colleagues disagreed with her. Now there is a certain logic to the majority decision and had the Supreme Court left it there, it would have made some sense. But it didn't. It went on to say, actually no, the scale of damages is not just for the jury to decide, we (the Supreme Court) think what they awarded in this instance is disproportionate, it has to go back to a jury to decide again.
It was put to the judges of the Supreme Court there was no point in saying the award was disproportionate without giving some clue as to what they thought would be proportionate. They refused. So the case went back to the High Court for another jury to decide again what the damages would be. And this jury could not be told that the Supreme Court thought the award of £250,000 was disproportionate. Mad, isn't it? And the new jury made an award of €750,000.
Even taking into account the passage of time, inflation and the new currency, the increase of an award from €317,000 (the equivalent of £250,000) to €750,000 was still astonishing. Perhaps explicable in part by the conduct of the Mirrorin this second hearing. Again it attacked the character of Denis O'Brien, making matters even worse.
It is likely the case will be referred to the Supreme Court again. And, if so, what will it do this time?
It has the following options: It can say that the €750,000 award is not disproportionate, even though it found that an award that was two and a half times less was disproportionate.
It can say, okay, the game is up, we will settle the award this time and from now on judges have got to give guidelines to juries on deciding awards (thereby acknowledging that its previous position was untenable and that their colleague, Susan Denham, was right all along).
It can say the award is disproportionate and it has to go back to a jury again and, if necessary again and again until such time as a jury gets it right, and, in the meantime, the jury must never be told that the Supreme Court thought the original award was disproportionate.
Thank God the country is in safe hands.