Council man to pay workmate $400 damages

The Herald, February 10, 1986

A DEFAMATION and assault suit recently ended with a Harare municipality legal assistant, Godfrey Mararike, being ordered to pay $400 in damages for falsely accusing a workmate, Mr Harry Birchall, of assault.

At a recent High Court sitting, Mr Justice Reynolds ruled that Mararike should pay Mr Birchall, an electrical engineer, $400 with costs on the magistrate’s court scale for “falsely implicating” Mr Birchall in an assault.

The court was told that Mararike had accused Mr Birchall of brandishing a fist in his face and threatening to “blast him to pieces” during an argument over an internal report.

Mararike said Mr Birchall made “snide” remarks and subjected him to “a torrent of profanities, insults, abuses, screaming and shouting”.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Reynolds said Mr Birchall, at 59 years of age, seemed to be a “moderate and balanced type of person who gave his evidence in a composed and restrained fashion”.

He said Mararike on the other hand had given evidence in an unfavourable way and his version of what took place seemed “exaggerated and concocted”.

The judge said witnesses called by Mr Birchall had left the court in no doubt of what took place that day.

He found Mararike had defamed Mr Birchall in his report to the municipality, but the degree of defamation was not great and said Mr Birchall should have sought redress in the magistrate’s court.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

• Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to their/its reputation. It can be spoken or written. It constitutes a misdemeanour or crime.
• To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: a false statement purporting to be fact, publication or communication of that statement to a third party; fault, amounting to negligence; and damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject.
• Making false claims or accusations without concrete proof can land one in serious trouble and it can be very costly in terms of damages.
• When making a point, it is important to be composed so that whoever is listening to your contribution will believe and trust what you are saying.