03/02/2020 Stocker v Stocker [2019] UKSC 17 (3 April 2019) about the role of the appellate court in appeals concerning the meaning of avowedly defamatory words chosen by a trial judge. The role of the appellate court 52. The question of when it was appropriate for an appellate court to substitute its view for that of a trial judge on the meaning of a claimed defamatory statement was addressed at some length in Bukovsky . At para 30 Simon LJ set out the competing contentions of counsel as to how this issue should be approached: “… [Counsel for the appellant] submitted that the relevant test on an appeal on meaning was whether the decision of the lower court was wrong: see CPR rule 52.11(3)(a), now CPR rule 52.21(3)(a). In contrast, [counsel for the respondent] submitted that this court should only reject the meaning found by the judge if it was ‘clear’ that some other meaning applied. A passage in Duncan & Neill … at para 33.03 describes both arguments in relation to the determination of meaning (a different approach is adopted in a determination made under paragraph 4 of CPR Practice Direction 53 that a statement is capable or incapable of bearing a particular meaning). I have added the letters A and B to para 33.03 so as to distinguish the two approaches: ‘[A] A determination of the actual meaning of a statement is a determination of fact that an appeal court is bound to overturn if the judge’s determination was ‘wrong’. Since determination of meaning is often based on the consideration of a single document, an appellate court, it might be said, is as well placed as the first instance judge to decide the issue and should simply substitute its own view if it disagrees with the judge.’ ‘[B] On the other hand, it might be said, determination of meaning is nevertheless an exercise that involves the evaluation and weighing of various parts of a statement, such that an appeal court should normally accord a degree of deference to the first instance judge and interfere only when ‘quite satisfied’ that a judge’s determination of meaning was wrong and that some other meaning clearly applied. It appears that this more deferential approach is the one likely to be adopted.’” 53. At para 31, Simon LJ observed that proposition B had been supported by a number of judgments of the Court of Appeal, including that of Sir Thomas Bingham MR in Skuse v Granada Television Ltd [1996] MLR 278, 287, where he said: “The Court of Appeal should be slow to differ from any conclusion of fact reached by a trial judge. Plainly this principle is less compelling where his conclusion is not based on his assessment of the reliability of witnesses or on the substance of their oral evidence and where the material before the appellate court is exactly the same as was before him. But even so we should not disturb his finding unless we are quite satisfied he was wrong.” (Emphasis added) https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2019/17.html 13/16