Lachlan Murdoch’s defamation case against Crikey might not be heard until 2024 if the Fox chief executive successfully widens his claim against the online publisher.
In a case management hearing on Thursday morning, Justice Michael Wigney told the parties Murdoch’s late application to amend his statement of claim and join two further defendants — Private Media chairman Eric Beecher and chief executive Will Hayward — would inevitably lengthen the trial and possibly force the court to vacate the trial date set for the end of March.
“If the amendments are allowed, [the hearing set for] March 27 2023 would have to go or would have to add another week,” he said.
Neither party contested that view.
Murdoch is currently suing Private Media, Crikey political editor Bernard Keane and Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray over a June 29 article that described “Murdoch” as an “unindicted co-conspirator” of former US president Donald Trump following the deadly US Capitol riots in 2021.
The amendments sought by Murdoch revolve around the role Beecher and Hayward played in having the article re-published on August 15 after the article was initially removed following a complaint from Murdoch’s lawyers.
Barrister Clarissa Amato, acting for Private Media, said Crikey would oppose Murdoch’s application to expand his claim, primarily on the basis of the prejudice the lateness of the application would give rise to if successful.
“The principal objection is that it is made late, bearing in mind the trial date,” she said. “The lateness of the application would therefore inevitably bomb the hearing date, if I can put it that way.”
Amato also accused Murdoch’s lawyers of “side-stepping” the preliminary question of whether the court would be minded to give Murdoch leave to hear the new claims “in the one suit”.
The court ultimately ordered Murdoch’s submissions to be filed by January 20, and Private Media’s by January 27.
Justice Wigney meanwhile dismissed Murdoch’s November application for supplementary discovery and extensive interrogatories on the basis it would be “entirely counterproductive and a manifest waste of the court’s time” given Murdoch’s application to expand his claim.
He also ordered that the costs of earlier interlocutory skirmishes between the parties be “costs in the cause”, meaning the costs fall to whichever party is unsuccessful at trial.
Pre-trial hearings will resume January 30.
