Publisher fights Rush defamation payout
Anewspaper publisher appealing Geoffrey Rush’s A$2.9 million ($3.1m) payout for defamation told an Australian court there was no evidence the Oscarwinning actor was unable to work or had fewer job offers because of damage to his reputation. News Corp-owned Nationwide News is appealing a Federal Court judge’s ruling in April that the 68-year-old Australian actor was defamed by newspaper reports that he had been accused of inappropriate behaviour by actor Eryn Jean Norvill. She played the daughter of Rush’s character in a Sydney theatre production of King Lear in 2015-16.
The publisher is also appealing against the size of Rush’s damages awarded in May for two articles published in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper and a poster that the judge found portrayed him as a pervert and a sexual predator.
Rush and wife Jane Menelaus attended the Sydney court on Monday for the first day of the two-day appeal. The publisher’s lawyer, Tom Blackburn, told three Federal Court judges hearing the appeal that the trial judge, Michael Wigney, heard no evidence that Rush had been unable to work and had fewer job offers as a result of the articles.
Your Honours might find this an astonishing omission.
Tom Blackburn, lawyer
“Your Honours might find this an astonishing omission,” Blackburn told the judges.
Blackburn said Wigney “cobbled together” speculation and inference to find Rush was unable to work because of his state of mind and had fewer offers after the publications.
Rush did not give evidence saying: “I am unable to work because of these articles” or testify that he had received no or fewer job offers, Blackburn said. Blackburn said the actor’s experienced lawyers made a “deliberate decision” not to ask the questions because the answers “might be unfavourable”.
Blackburn dropped the publisher’s claim that Wigney’s conduct at trial created an “apprehension of bias” in favour of the actor. Rush’s lawyer, Bret Walker, called the claim “a slur on the judge”.
Rush received the best actor Oscar in 1996 for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott in Shine and was nominated for roles in
Shakespeare In Love, Quills and
The King’s Speech.
He is also famed for his portrayal of Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean
films.