Case against first defendant Glenn Lall dismissed
IN the Kaieteur Newspaper of September 11, 2006, an article captioned “Bisessar mess pun de big man desk” appeared.
Consequently, on September 27, 2006, former Personal Assistant to the President, Rajendra Bisessar instituted proceedings against Glen Lall and the National Media and Publishing Company, Limited-publisher of Kaieteur News,  pointing out that he (Bisessar) had been libelled and claimed damages in excess of $10M for libel contained in the article headed “Bisessar mess pun  de big man desk”.
Among other things, Bisessar claimed damages in excess of $50, 000 for exemplary damages and an injunction restraining the defendants from repeating the alleged libel with costs.
But Acting Chief Justice, Mr. Ian Chang, S.C. who heard the action, firstly, dismissed the matter against the first-defendant Glen Lall, who was awarded $50,000 in costs.
The second named defendant National Media and Publishing Company Limited was ordered to pay general damages to the plaintiff Bisessar in the sum of $450,000 for libel.
According to the Chief Justice “this amount includes aggravated damages for injury to the plaintiff’s feelings and for mental distress.”
The injunction prayed for in the Statement of claim was also granted.
There will be costs fixed in the sum of $75,000 to the plaintiff against the second-named defendant.
In the Statement of Claim, the plaintiff stated that he was being employed as Personal Assistant to the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and was the holder of first degrees in Law and Sociology. He previously wrote several articles in the Kaieteur Newspaper and the defendants were the publishers of several articles in the said newspaper under a column “De People Talking” without naming the authors of those articles.
He stated that the offensive article was meant and was understood to mean that he had committed a crime worse than that of murder, child molestation and rape.
In his statement of claim, the plaintiff claimed that he suffered considerable distress, embarrassment and severe injury to his reputation from the publication of the article and was likely to suffer further irreparable harm to his reputation and standing.
In their statement of defence, the first-named defendant, Glen Lall claimed he was not a proper defendant in the proceedings since he was sued in his personal capacity. Both defendants denied that the article, which was a satirical column, was defamatory of the plaintiff and that its publication was motivated by ill will, malice or financial reward. They denied that the article caused or was capable of causing injury to the plaintiff’s reputation.
They claimed that the column “De People Talking” was in hearsay form, in creolese language for the purposes of light and entertaining reading on diverse issues and subjects and the provision of humour to the readers.
Continuing his judgment, the Chief Justice added: “There is no evidence that Glen Lall did write the article. Indeed, the evidence reveals that it was Adam Harris, Editor of Kaieteur News who wrote the article. It is also clear that the second-named defendant published the article. Even though the evidence is that the first-named defendant is the sole shareholder of the second-named defendant, it was the second-named defendant and not the sole shareholder who made the publication. The question arises as to whether there is evidence on which this court can and is inclined to find that the first-named defendant (Glen Lall) was party to the sending of the article to the second-named defendant for publication.
“On the evidence, the court is not satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the first named defendant (Glen Lall) was party to the publication of the article. On the evidence, he might well have been party to the publication. On the other hand, equally, he might not have been. The case against the first named defendant must therefore be dismissed.
While the article had the style of satire and the purpose of humour, it was nevertheless defamatory of the plaintiff since any reasonable reader of the article (being not an unduly cynical or unduly censorious reader) would take the view that the plaintiff who had hitherto achieved so much and performed so well to his personal credit, later made a serious faux pas in the performance of his duties at the Office of the President.
Since the court found that the plaintiff was libelled, damage must be presumed. However, the plaintiff has not proved any actual or special damage. As such, the court must award to the plaintiff general damages for damage presumed and not special damages for damage proved.
The court does not find that the facts and circumstances of this case attract an award of exemplary damages since there was no evidence that publication of the article was calculated to make a profit for the second-named defendant which would offset any compensatory damages which might be awarded for the libel.
Though not conclusive against the award of exemplary damages, there is also no evidence that the second-named defendant profited from the libel in the sense that the publication of the libellous statement resulted in an increase in the sale of the newspaper. The fact that the second-named defendant was engaged in the newspaper business for profit is not enough, the Chief Justice declared.
Mr. Chang added, “In the circumstances, the court sees it fit to award to the plaintiff the sum of $450, 000 as general damages for libel committed by the second named defendant.

Attorney-at-Law Mr. Nigel Hughes appeared for the plaintiff, while Mr. Mohabir A. Nandlall represented the defendant.