Specific economic loss and exemplary or punitive damages aside, there are three purposes to be served by damages awarded for defamation. The three purposes no doubt overlap considerably in reality and ensure that the amount of a verdict is the product of a mixture of inextricable considerations. The three purposes are consolation for the personal distress and hurt caused to the appellant by the publication, reparation for the harm done to the appellant's personal and (if relevant) business reputation and vindication of the appellant's reputation. The first two purposes are frequently considered together and constitute consolation for the wrong done to the appellant. Vindication looks to the attitude of others to the appellant: the sum awarded must be at least the minimum necessary to signal to the public the vindication of the appellant's reputation. The gravity of the libel, the social standing of the parties and the availability of alternative remedies are all relevant to assessing the quantum of damages necessary to vindicate the appellant.
(Footnotes and internal quotations omitted)
259 And as Brennan J said in that case at 72:
Damages by way of vindication of reputation are not added to the damages assessed under other heads. Although an award of damages operates as a vindication of the plaintiff to the public and as consolation to him for a wrong done … the dual operation of an award does not require cumulative components of damages. The same sum can operate as vindication, compensation and solatium, for the amount of a verdict is the product of a mixture of inextricable considerations. The amount assessed under other heads may itself be sufficient in aggregate to provide the vindication required. The extent of the overlap depends on the circumstances. But the award in total must be sufficient to satisfy the purposes for which damages for defamation are awarded: vindication of reputation, compensation for injury to reputation and solatium for injured feelings.
(Footnotes and internal quotations omitted)
260 As Rares J said in Barilaro v Google LLC [2022] FCA 650 at [296]–[297]:
… in assessing general damages the Court is entitled to look at the whole of the conduct of the publisher from the time of publication to the time of the verdict … the mode and extent of publication, the fact that the defamatory statement was never retracted, the fact that the publisher never offered an apology and the fact that the defamatory statement had been persisted in to the end … those factors might increase the area of publication, the effect of the defamatory publication on those who read, saw or heard it and its vitality and capability of causing (further) harm to the claimant.
… the quantum of damages in a defamation action must be such that in case the libel, driven underground, emerges from its lurking place at some future date, he [the claimant] must be able to point to a sum awarded by a jury sufficient to convince a bystander of the baselessness of the charge. The award must also have regard to the grapevine effect of the publication complained of so as to ensure that the claimant recovers an appropriate amount of compensation …
(Footnotes and internal quotations omitted)
261 Pursuant to s 34 of the Act, in awarding any damages, the court must ensure that there is an appropriate and rational relationship between the harm sustained by an applicant and the award.
