Judge ends solicitor's libel claim over client's online comment

A solicitor who tried to sue a former client over an online review has had her claim struck out over a series of procedural issues.

Jacqueline Samuels, trading as Leeds practice Samuels & Co Solicitors, brought a claim for damages for libel against Christopher Laycock after he posted a review on Google My Business calling the firm ‘quite deceitful’. Samuels had acted for Laycock in a lease extension transaction to facilitate a sale of a London property.

In Samuels (t/a Samuels & Co Solicitors) v Laycock, Mr Justice Kerr went through a litany of procedural failings before finding that the claim should not be allowed to progress any further.

The court heard that Samuels brought the claim for £10,000 damages in February 2020 and three months later applied for summary judgment. Master Thornett found the published phrase was defamatory but stayed the remainder of the claim and ordered it would be struck out unless an application to restore it was made.

Samuels twice emailed the court over subsequent months without copying in the defendant, in breach of civil procedure rules. The defendant later complained that she had failed to properly ascertain his residence to serve papers.

In November 2022, the master wrote to both parties suggesting that Samuels had taken ‘no meaningful steps’ to progress the case and advising them both to seek legal advice from defamation specialists.

Samuels then made a witness statement together with proposed directions for trial, despite there having been no effective case management hearing, no disclosure and no directions for witness evidence.

Thornett made no reference to these documents when he ordered that the claimant’s application to restore the case was dismissed, effectively striking it out.

Samuels appealed, arguing that such an order was unjust because of a serious procedural error by the master.

Mr Justice Kerr said it ‘beggars belief’ that the claimant thought the defendant had received documents at the very address the solicitor had been helping to sell. He agreed that there had been an ‘irregularity’ by Thornett not mentioning the witness statement, but said the master's decision should stand nonetheless.

The judge said Samuels had done ‘precious little’ to bring her claim to trial, and as a solicitor she should have been aware of legal obligations. She had ignored advice to seek representation and in any case, the original online post had been removed and the claim was largely historic.

‘The action has made no progress in over three years and that is much more the fault of the claimant than the defendant, though neither is blameless,’ he added.