Speaking as someone who has had to defend a defamation claim
from a teacher I barely know, I was recently horrified by the NSW District
Court in allowing such a claim against a twenty year old kid. Just recently, this
twenty year old kid, Andrew Farley, was ordered to pay a teacher, Christine
Mickle $105,000 plus legal costs for writing something nasty about her on
Twitter. This begs the question: is teaching still a profession, or has it
moved to the trades? Is law still a profession if it entertains this type of
claim?
Piecing through the information about this case, apparently
the young bloke didn’t ever have Ms Mickle as a teacher, presumably barely knew
her. He had a grievance regarding her taking over his father’s job when his
father left due to health reasons. NSW District Court Judge Michael Elkaim
stated that “There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate that belief,” while
also being critical of Farley because he "abandoned his interest in the proceedings" and did not appear
at the trial; two seemingly contradictory statements. If there was no evidence
to support a belief of the plaintiff’s actions, when the defendant did not
appear at the trial, presumably this has no bearing on the truth as the
defendant has not attempted to present it.
Farley apparently ignored the initial letter from Mickle’s
lawyers, but removed the material and unreservedly apologised for it after
further letters, probably containing severe threats. The matter then went to
trial where his defence of truth was struck out because he had previously
apologised for the material. Importantly, in defamation cases, when a defendant
raises a claim of truth or honest opinion, the onus is then on the plaintiff to
prove otherwise. If the defence doesn’t come to trial, it would be hard to see
how the plaintiff can do this.
The end result is that the defendant will probably be bankrupted,
if Ms Mickle’s solicitors are silly enough to pursue the matter; Ms Mickle will
end up paying a huge legal bill; a District Court Judge can give himself a good
old pat on the back for being so up-to-date and we will all shake our heads and
wonder what happened to the concept of a professional.
Professionalism is hard to define in times where one can
apparently be a ‘professional’ anything, from carpet cleaner, lawn mower or bug
killer through to hair dresser or brick layer (areas which have always been
trades).
Traditionally, the professions were restricted to specific
areas: law, medicine, religious instruction and the military. Over history,
teaching, nursing, accountancy, engineering and other disciplines have been
added to the class, muddying the concept. But the concept has still remained. A
true professional may well define professionalism’s most basic quality as being
one who would always put the greater good above their own, monetary standing. This
means that if you choose your own finances over the profession, you are no
longer a professional. If you choose to seek $105,000 by doing something that
disgraces the profession of teaching, you are no longer a professional. My
parents were teachers most of their working life. They were regularly called
everything from fools through to paedophiles and thugs. Yet they got up every
day and did their job. They did this because they knew who were the
professionals and who were the children.
It would appear Ms Mickle does not share this point of view.
One must also worry about the competence and abilities of a teacher who can be
rendered unable to teach because of the words of someone she has never taught.
I know I certainly don’t want my children taught by someone of such thin skin.
About eighteen months ago, I wrote an article which in part
witnessed some stuff. While this article didn’t specifically
name anyone, it did raise the attention of someone to employ
a lawyer and try to sue me for defamation. I barely knew this guy, but had
witnessed inappropriately acting, most of the article was
not about him and the part that was didn’t name him.
The letters of his lawyer were threatening to the point of
being childish. I largely ignored them until the threats increased to include
using the legal process to stealing all the computers in my house. A court
claim was lodged and counsel retained. Thankfully this counsel was useless and
I was in a situation where I had the time and legal knowledge to defend the
matter myself. I would hate to think what people who cannot attend court or do
not have the knowledge or expertise to lodge a defence would do in such a
situation. They would probably do what Andrew Farley did and agree to the
threatening requests of a lawyer. In my case, I agreed to a compromise, mainly
because I did not want to waste time on the matter. The plaintiff, apparently never had any intention of honouring
his agreement and proceeded to tell everyone that he had successfully sued me
immediately after signing an agreement which demanded he do the opposite.
It would be easy in this situation to blame ‘the lawyers’,
but given I am one, that would be a bit sadistic. Could we blame bad teachers?
That would stir up too much of a polarised response. I think we can blame
people pretending to be professionals: People in the professional classes who
put their own needs and wants above the greater good. A lawn mower man can be a
professional not by mowing lawns for a living, but by mowing his elderly
neighbour’s lawn for free when she can’t afford his rates. A lawyer cannot be a
professional if they seek to fill in their billable hours at the expense of the
teaching profession or if they don’t have the courage to tell their client that
they simply don’t have a case. A teacher may be a professional if their work
pursues the greater good. They can be a non-professional if they choose to sue
a little kid with a sick dad rather than take the high road.
