1. ) HO THAM MOI 2. ) LEE HONG KEOW v TAY YU YAA

Case Significance

Instructive on the threshold for actionable defamation and on judicial caution against converting harsh social-media exchanges within a family dispute into defamation, applying the plainly-wrong standard of appellate review.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam is an appeal in a defamation claim arising from a family dispute conducted on social media. The appellants, a married couple who were business partners distributing consumer products, sued the respondent, their daughter-in-law, over a post she had published on her Facebook account in Mandarin in January 2022 and removed a few days later, complaining of fifteen statements said to be defamatory of them. The Sessions Court, after a full trial, dismissed the claim, holding that the statements, although harsh, were not defamatory in law, and the appellants appealed. The court, per Dato' Anita binti Harun JC, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Sessions Court's decision. It restated the elements a plaintiff must prove in defamation, namely that the words are defamatory, that they refer to the plaintiff, and that they were published to a third party, and the principle that an appellate court will interfere with findings of fact only where the trial court's decision is plainly wrong through a want of or improper judicial appreciation of the evidence. The court held that the Sessions Court Judge, who had the benefit of assessing the evidence, was correct in concluding that the words did not meet the legal threshold for defamation, so that two essential elements of the cause of action failed and it was unnecessary to consider the defences of fair comment and qualified privilege. It emphasised that the law protects reputation, not hurt feelings, and that courts must be cautious not to convert every insult exchanged on social media during a family quarrel into actionable defamation, describing the impugned postings as a venting of feelings in a domestic dispute. Finding no misdirection of law or manifest error, the court dismissed the appeal with costs of RM5,000. The judgment is instructive on the threshold for actionable defamation and on judicial caution in treating social-media exchanges within a family as defamatory.