Fijian Broadcasting Corporation Ltd has been ordered to pay $50,000 to a doctor who was labelled as “fake” in a news story published in September 2016.
Shanjivan Padarath claimed damages for cyber libel loss and damage to his fame, profession, dignity, prospect of promotion, employment abroad, mental distress, anxiety, pain and suffering.
Mr Padarath claimed the representations were false, untrue, inaccurate and misleading and that the use of his photograph was malicious, deliberate and recklessness.
FBC removed the photograph without any public apology and compensation after seven days.
FBC Ltd said the publication was done in good faith without malice.
“I note that the impugned publication does not name the plaintiff, neither in the caption nor in the body.
“The photograph published is a side view picture of the seated plaintiff with two people seated in front of him,” stated Justice A.L.B. Brito-Mutunayagam in his March 16 ruling.
“The reader is told that a man pretending to be a doctor with no medical qualifications has been exposed as a fraud and the so-called fake doctor had been operating for the last three months.
“In my judgment, the natural and ordinary meaning which would have been conveyed to the ordinary reasonable reader by the article and the photograph is that the plaintiff was the fake doctor with no medical qualifications. Any reasonable man would come to this conclusion.
“Why else was the plaintiff’s picture used and not an animated picture?”
FBC Ltd also has to pay Dr Padarath $4000 in costs.
