## Facts

- Collerton was the elected secretary of a freezing-industry trade union.
- Maclean and three other executive committee members signed a written requisition seeking a meeting of the union’s executive council to consider complaints about Collerton’s conduct.
- The requisition asserted, in substance, that Collerton used “undermining tactics” and was dilatory in performing his duties, causing disharmony in the industry.
- Under the union’s rules, Collerton (as secretary) had to issue notices of executive meetings; he forwarded the requisition in its original form to executive members and gave notice of the proposed meeting.
- At the meeting, the requisition was communicated to the council and its substance was recorded in the minutes.
- Collerton sued for libel, alleging actionable publication of the requisition’s defamatory statements to third parties.
- Defendants argued they were not responsible for any actionable publication beyond delivering the requisition to the secretary and that any further dissemination was Collerton’s own act.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants “published” defamatory matter by preparing, signing, and delivering the requisition to the union secretary for the purpose of convening a meeting.
2. Whether circulation of the requisition by the plaintiff, performed as part of his official duties, could be treated as publication attributable to defendants (as opposed to non-actionable self-publication).
3. Whether repetition of the impugned statements through the meeting process and recording in minutes constituted actionable publication traceable to defendants.

## Decision

- The court treated the defendants’ act of submitting the signed requisition for the purpose of convening a meeting as sufficient to establish an initial actionable publication within the union process.
- The court held that subsequent dissemination by Collerton, done in the course of his administrative duties and with knowledge of the content, was not publication by the defendants.
- The court further held that the recording of the requisition’s substance in the meeting minutes did not extend defendants’ liability beyond the initial requisition-related communication.
- Collerton did not obtain the expanded liability he sought based on later internal dissemination.

## Legal Principles

- Defamation requires publication: communication of the defamatory matter to at least one person other than the plaintiff, attributable in law to the defendant.
- A plaintiff generally cannot establish the publication element by relying on the plaintiff’s own later dissemination of the defamatory matter, particularly where the plaintiff acts voluntarily or pursuant to the plaintiff’s responsibilities.
- Foreseeability that words may be repeated does not, by itself, make every later repetition a publication for which the original speaker is legally responsible; attribution depends on the defendant’s responsibility for the communication.
- Internal organizational communications and routine records of proceedings (such as minutes) may be treated, on the facts, as part of internal governance and not as a basis for expanding publication and liability beyond the initiating act.

## Conclusion

The court confined potential defamation liability to the defendants’ initiating communication of the requisition within the union process and refused to attribute the plaintiff’s duty-based circulation and related internal record-keeping to the defendants as publication.


Collerton v. Maclean, [1962] N.Z.L.R. 1045 (N.Z. Sup. Ct. 1962)