QRS v Beach & Anor
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- THE HONOURABLE MRS JUSTICE SLADE DBE
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Human Rights Law
- Tort Law
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Claimant, a solicitor, sought and was granted an interim injunction to restrain Mr. Beach and Mr. Kordowski from harassing him and his firm through defamatory online postings. The court held that the defendants' actions amounted to harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and granted the injunction to minimize further distress and reputational damage.
Judgment
Mr Justice Warby:
The second defendant, Rick Kordowski, applies to set aside a judgment entered in default of acknowledgment of service by order of Stuart-Smith J on 16 September 2014, and the final injunction granted by Stuart-Smith J at the same time, which restrains both defendants from further acts of harassment.
The proceedings
The action is brought by the claimant on his own behalf and in a representative capacity for others, described as Protected Parties, for an injunction to restrain the defendants from continuing a course of conduct involving harassment by the publication on websites of serious allegations. The claimant is a solicitor, and a partner in a firm. The Protected Parties are (a) solicitors in the claimant’s firm identified on websites complained of (“the Listed Protected Parties”), (b) other solicitors and staff of the firm who are not so named, and (c) the lawyers and others acting for the claimant in these proceedings.
The first defendant, Mr Beach, is a former client of the claimant’s firm, which acted for him in various matters between 2006 and 2010. Mr Kordowski, the second defendant, is best known as the former operator of a website using the domain name solicitorsfromhell.co.uk (sfh.uk) which he operated between about 2006 and 2011. The website was devoted to the public denunciation of legal professionals for alleged misconduct and impropriety. At its height over 466 firms were referred to on it in over 1,000 postings. Mr Kordowski was also the registrant in 2008 of another website which, for the purposes of avoiding identification in these proceedings has been called XYZ.net. Mr Kordowski has been the defendant in a very substantial number of civil claims arising from the operation of sfh.co.uk. The evidence put before the court by the claimant stated, without contradiction, that Mr Kordowski had been sued on 18 occasions in relation to sfh.co.uk, and that no case was known in which he had been successful.
One of the claims against Mr Kordowski was a libel action brought by the claimant’s firm in 2011 in respect of the posting on the sfh.co.uk site of allegations made by Mr Beach. An interim injunction was granted by Sharp J on 23 May 2011. This later became otiose because the Law Society brought representative proceedings on behalf of the profession in which injunctions were granted. The initial injunction was granted by Langstaff J on 2 November 2011 on a without notice application, restraining the sale, transf