Say both parties are citizens of the US. Could the one who sued for
libel then, subsequently, be sued in the US for malicious prosecution,
barratry, or something like that? [they sued in UK jurisdiction,
presumably, because they knew that what was done was not in fact libel,
and were taking advantage of the lax standards of proof in the UK, or
even of the likelihood of a default judgement.]
There's a maxim that goes something like "Anyone can be sued for any
reason" with its addendum "The difficulty is getting it to stick."
The foundation of libel (and slander and defamation) is that
there is damage (or attempted damage) to someone's reputation.
Defence against libel lies in showing that the circumstances did not
give rise to damage to the reputation, or in showing that the damage
was lawful within the constraints of the relevant law.
It is entirely possible for a court to rule that libel (damage to
reputation) has occured, but that the defendant had a lawful excuse and
so cannot be punished for the libelous act. Judges have been known to
issue harsh scoldings in cases where the circumstances do not permit
them to convict; in many countries, those scoldings become matters of
public record.
The UK does not have lax standards of proof for libel: what it
has is a different set of lawful excuses.
In USA law, if a libelous statement is found to be true,
then the truth of that statement is considered an "absolute defence".
That would not stop the judge from ruling that a statement was
indeed shamefully libelous: it just stops them from doing anything about it.
Also, the USA has a relatively new law of "criminal libel", in
which the truth of the statement is NOT a defence, if the courts are
satisfied that the statement was made "in reckless disregard for the truth".
Thus if a tabloid publishes a shopping list of invented attacks on
a celeb, one of which happpens by accident to be true, then the
celeb can sue on the whole without having to implicitly admit the
truth of the one portion by -not- sueing about the one.
In Canadian federal law, the truth of a statement is not a defence --
though in some circumstances, a reasonable -belief- in the truth of the
statement is. -Every- available defence is qualified by the requirement
that the statements did not go too far beyond what was "reasonable"
under the circumstances. Thus slagging someone a little is sometimes
excusable, but slagging them a lot is not, even if everything said was
true.
UK law (or precident) goes further and [if I understand correctly]
basically says, "If you don't have a good reason to actively say
these things, then don't say them." What qualifies as a good enough
reason has been evolving over the last decade or so, with more
"public interest" allowances being accepted.
I would -think- that in order for someone in the US to prove
malicious prosecution or barratry with respect to a libel suit
that was run in the UK, it would probably have to be proved
that there was no -reasonable- chance that the original libel
lawsuit could succeed there, or that there were ulterior motives
behind the filing of the suit. But court rulings continually
surprise me...
