03/02/2020 Stocker v Stocker [2019] UKSC 17 (3 April 2019) 54. As Simon LJ noted, however, when the Court of Appeal came to state its conclusion in Skuse , it merely said that it was “satisfied” that the natural and ordinary meaning which the judge gave to the material complained of was wrong. The “satisfied/quite satisfied” dichotomy featured again in Cruddas v Calvert [2013] EWCA Civ 748; [2014] EMLR 5, para 18 Longmore LJ summarised the claimant’s argument thus: “[Counsel for the claimants] relied heavily on a supposed principle that the meaning of words was a jury question (and thus a question of fact) and that the judge was the best person qualified to reach the right conclusion which should not be ‘second guessed’ by this court.” 55. He then referred to Skuse v Granada Television Ltd and to Cammish v Hughes [2012] EWCA Civ 1655; [2013] EMLR 13, where Arden LJ had said at para 31: “As to the test that this court should apply, although this court has the same documents as were available to the judge, and the meaning depends on documents, we apply the dictum of Sir Thomas Bingham MR, [in Skuse ]. The determination of meaning does not depend solely on the documents, but on an evaluation of those words in their context. In those circumstances, we consider that we should not depart from the judge’s meaning unless it is clear that some other meaning applies .” (Emphasis added) 56. Longmore LJ in Cruddas acknowledged the force of the submission that the Court of Appeal should not second guess the judge and said at para 19: “19. There is, of course, considerable force in this argument. On the other hand, imputations of criminal conduct are extremely serious and, if an appellate court thinks that an article just does not bear that imputation, it should say so. It is an important aspect of the law of libel that it should be open to a defendant to justify a lesser defamatory meaning than that alleged by a claimant if that is the right meaning to be given to the article.” 57. He concluded by saying that if, in order to come within Sir Thomas Bingham’s eighth principle in the Skuse case, he had to, he would say that he was not merely satisfied but “quite satisfied”. For my part, the difference in this context between being satisfied and being quite satisfied, if it can be discerned at all, is so ephemeral, so elusive a concept as to be of scant utility. Ultimately, the court in Bukovsky elected to steer a middle course between what Simon LJ had described as options A and B. At para 39, Simon LJ said: “It seems to me that the better approach is for this court to adopt a position somewhere between Duncan & Neill’s propositions A and B. It should proceed cautiously before substituting its own views on meaning and only do so when satisfied that the judge is wrong, not least because meaning is very often a matter of impression, because experienced defamation judges are well practised at applying the relevant tests for determining meaning and because it is plainly undesirable for the Court of Appeal to approach the issue on appeal simply on the basis that they might have formed a different view from the judge.” https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2019/17.html 14/16