Verdict in defamation trial will only embolden pilots

THE finding by a jury that three pilots had not defamed Ryanair in an email to colleagues crowned a humiliating week for the no-frills carrier.

The airline alleged the three members of the Ryanair Pilot Group, Evert Van Zwol, John Goss and Ted Murphy, defamed the company in an email headed: “Pilot update, what the markets are saying about Ryanair.” It claimed the email falsely inferred Ryanair management misled the market and facilitated insider dealing.

While the jury found the email did mean the airline was guilty of market manipulation, the absence of malice on the part of the defendants meant the airline had not been defamed.

The verdict came just days after Ryanair finally capitulated to years of campaigning by pilots for union recognition.

Not only was the jury’s decision a crushing blow to Ryanair, but the airline has also been left facing allegations the trial process itself was used by the company as an industrial relations tactic.

Paul O’Higgins, senior counsel for the pilots, told the jury that the reason Ryanair took the case was to “shut the beaks of anyone who might open them”.

Ryanair firmly denied this, stating the case was only about the publication of the email on September 12, 2013.

If Mr O’Higgins’s allegation is an accurate one, then the Ryanair strategy backfired badly.

The verdict is only likely to embolden pilots further in their disputes with the company.

What was initially set to be a relatively straightforward four-day High Court defamation trial turned into a mammoth seven-week slog in which industrial relations practices in Ryanair were put firmly under the microscope.

One of the main reasons the trial ended up being so sprawling in nature was that Ryanair furnished a

Ultimately, the jury found that malice on the part of the pilots was not proven

document to the defendants last October, four years after the action was initiated, headed ‘particulars of malice’.

This essentially alleged the three pilots were motivated by malice when they sent the email.

This was an ingredient Ryanair needed to prove for its action to be successful.

The pilots had filed a defence of qualified privilege.

This is a legal principle governing communications between persons with a duty to impart information to persons with an interest in receiving it. In those circumstances, the law protects communicators if the information does not turn out to be correct.

But they would lose this protection if it were demonstrated they acted maliciously.

Ultimately, the jury found that malice was not proven.

However, the details contained in the ‘particulars of malice’ document were so wide-ranging that it had the effect of spreading the case out enormously.

It summarised dealings the defendants had with Ryanair down through the years, painting them as industrial agitators who in pursuit of an agenda to unionise Ryanair had acted with ill-intent.

Only one of the pilots, John Goss, had worked for Ryanair and he had a long history of acrimonious litigation with the airline, it was claimed.

The defendants accepted they wished to organise the pilots, but insisted there was no agenda to damage Ryanair. They were acting so concerns expressed by pilots could be better listened to by the company.

Evidence had to be called about the way the Ryanair representative model worked, detailing how each base had an employee representative committee.

The argument of the pilots was that the model of pilot representation was more designed to facilitate the company’s agenda than anything else.