Geoffrey Rush scores major court win against the Daily Telegraph
The Sydney Daily Telegraph will have to pay actor Geoffrey Rush a record multi-million amount in damages after the tabloid lost its appeal against a defamation ruling.
The paper and its publisher Nationwide News had launched an appeal after an Australian Federal Court ruling last April awarded Rush almost $2.9 million in damages over defamatory articles published in 2017.
The stories alleged Rush behaved inappropriately towards co-star Eryn Jean Norvill during the 2015-16 run of the Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear.
Nationwide News said the imputations in the articles were substantially true, calling on Norvill and her colleagues as witnesses in the original defamation trial.
In her evidence, Norvill told the court Rush had deliberately touched his breast during a live performance without consent.
Rush denied the claims.
The full Federal Court dismissed all grounds of the appeal against the judgment and the payout size on Thursday, meaning that the awarded damages stand.
The appeal court agreed with the original judge Justice Michael Wigney that Norvill was “at times prone to embellishment or exaggeration”.
It also agreed with Justice Wigney’s decision to reject new evidence from another actress who came forward with allegations about Rush.
The actress, Yael Stone, has accused Rush of acting inappropriately towards her while working on a different production.
Nationwide News was ordered to pay Rush $850,000 for non-economic losses, $1,060,773 for past economic losses, $919,678 for future economic losses and $42,302 in interest.
Ben English, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, said he was “very disappointed” by Thursday’s decision.
He said he had hoped the full court would “reverse Justice Wigney’s findings as to the credibility of Eryn Jean Norvill or reverse His Honour’s decision to exclude the testimony of Yael Stone”.
“We will continue to report on the issues such as these which are of great concern to the Australian public. As stated by High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel last week, there is no place for sexual harassment in any workplace.”