A court has awarded $82,500 in damages to the owners of a cosmetic surgery clinic, in what is thought to be Australia’s first judgment involving defamation in an Instagram story.
In the Brisbane District Court, Judge Reid found former Beautyfull Cosmetic Medical Clinic employee Clare Hayes defamed the clinic’s owners in a story she posted to Instagram.
An Instagram story is a post on the social network which is generally only visible for 24 hours.
“A feature of Instagram, and other social media platforms, is that they are often infected by personal grievances aired in an obnoxious manner and are often not a reliable source of information,” Judge Reid found.
The dispute arose after a photograph was posted on Beautyfull’s Instagram account around March last year of the clinic’s founder, Margaret Scruton, in her uniform at work with the caption “Dr Margaret serving during COVID-19” and a picture of a trophy.
Beautyfull’s account has over 20,000 followers and is used by Beautyfull to promote the clinic’s cosmetic injectables and skin treatments with posts such as this one featuring founder “Dr Margaret, Nurse Kate & Nurse Kayleigh”:
Shortly after the clinic’s post of Dr Scruton in her uniform went up, Ms Hayes, who had 1844 followers on Instagram, used the photograph in an Instagram story post on her own account.
“Before you watch my story I am not naming and shaming but when I see a company upload a FAKE photo that a medical practitioner is going to work on the frontline during the Covid-19 crisis, it’s disgusting and disrespectful to the people who are actually putting their lives at risk to save others,” Ms Hayes posted.
“I would love to thank the REAL hero’s [sic] that are working day and night to save lives,” she posted. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) it’s such a serious situation that I don’t understand why a company would lie about it.”
However Judge Reid found that despite Ms Hayes’ assertion that she was not naming and shaming “it appears to me that is exactly what was intended by her story”.
In awarding damages Judge Reid found the post about Dr Scruton’s work during COVID-19 and a further post about an alleged assault on Ms Hayes were “clearly designed” to cause hurt and distress.
Professor David Rolph at the University of Sydney Law School said he believed it was the first judgment in Australia involving defamation by Instagram story.
“Any form of communication can give rise to a cause of action in defamation,” he said. “Social media has changed the way we communicate so social media platforms and technology can be used to defame people. It obviously has to be captured. Part of the difficulty with social media is it is ephemeral and transitory but it is also dynamic, people can comment on it and use it in other contexts and that adds a layer of complexity.”
Mr Rolph said while high-profile defamation cases involving well-known people made headlines, it was likely cases like the one brought by Beautyfull and its owners would continue to proliferate.
“At district court level around the country we are starting to see more cases between private individuals or small businesses using all the technology we communicate with Facebook posts, Tweets, SMS messages, we have even had Wechat cases,” he said.
Beautyfull’s owners declined to comment and The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald were unable to contact Ms Hayes.
