The District Court of Western Australia has ordered a woman to pay $12,500 in damages for writing a Facebook post claiming her husband had abused her.
In December of 2012, Robyn Greeuw published a post that read: “Separated from Miro Dabrowski after 18 years of suffering domestic violence and abuse. Now fighting the system to keep my children safe.”
Dabrowski launched a defamation claim against Greeuw, saying the accusations were false.
Justice Michael Bowden ruled in favour of Dabrowski in December 2014. This is the first time in Western Australia anyone has been ordered to pay damages over defamation on social media.
Justice Bowden made the decision based on his judgment that Greeuw had not been able to prove her husband was abusive.
“There is no independent evidence to support Ms Greeuw’s allegation of domestic violence or abuse by Mr Dabrowski towards the children or that the children need to be protected from him,” he said.
“Even applying the extended definition of the words ‘domestic violence and abuse’, as urged by Ms Greeuw, she has failed to prove any essential or substantial truth to the stings of the defamationimputations.”
He said it is possible to judge defamation claims just based on one partner’s word against the others, and that in this case he found Greeuw’s claim that Dabrowski had abused her to be false. Given he was not satisfied Greeuw had proved her claims of abuse were true, he ruled that the post was defamatory.
When explaining that such cases could be decided based upon one partner’s evidence against the others, he referred to the fact that “domestic violence and abuse by its very nature usually occur in the matrimonial home and in the absence of independent witnesses”.
He said Greeuw was not a credible witness and therefore he could not accept her claim that she had been abused throughout her marriage.
In a timeworn argument, Dabrowski’s lawyer argued it was implausible that Greeuw was a victim of domestic violence because she did not leave the marriage earlier or report the abuse to authorities.
Greeuw had, in fact, previously reported the violence to the police. Earlier in 2012, a WA family court issued Dabrowski with an Interim Family Violence Order. Dabrowski was ordered by the court not to approach or communicate with his ex-wife in order to protect her safety and the safety of their children.
Dabrowski violated this restraining order shortly after it was issued. Justice Bowden accepted that Dabrowski had breached the order, but still rejected claims of domestic violence.
Bowden’s decision to order Greeuw to pay damages was based on his judgment that the false claims in the post caused significant distress to Dabrowksi.
“I have no doubt that the post caused Mr Dabrowski personal distress, humiliation and hurt and harm to his reputation.”
What do you think? Does this set a dangerous precedent?