Missing Apostrophe in Facebook Post May Cost a Man in Defamation Case

A missing apostrophe in a Facebook post could cost a real estate agent tens of thousands of dollars in Australia after a court ruled that defamation proceedings could be initiated against them.

In his post last year, Anthony Zadravic, the agent, appears to have accused Stuart Gan, his former employer at a real estate agency, of failing to give pension benefits to all of the agency’s employees.

It’s about the word “staff” in the post which read, “Oh Stuart Gan !! Selling multi-million dollar homes in Pearl Beach but cannot pay retirement benefits to its employees, ”refers to the Australian pension system, where employers deposit money into employee super accounts. “Shame on you Stuart !!! 2 years and still waiting !!! ”

Less than 12 hours after the post was published on October 22nd, Mr Zadravic, who lives on the Central Coast of New South Wales, deleted it. But it was too late. Mr. Gan became aware of the news and filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Zadravic.

On Thursday, a New South Wales judge ruled that the lack of an apostrophe in the word “employee” could be interpreted as an indication of “systematic behavior” by Mr. Goose’s agency and not as an indictment against an employee. So she let the case go on.

Neither Mr. Zadravic’s lawyers nor Mr. Gan’s lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.

When it comes to punctuation, social media is the wild west. In some corners of the internet, sloppy grammar is highly tolerated – even a badge of honor. However, in legal matters, disputed punctuation can cost millions.

A recent case in Portland, Me., Involving overtime for truck drivers, depended on the lack of an Oxford comma – the often skipped final comma in a series like “A, B, and C” – in public law. The case, which was settled for $ 5 million in 2018, gained international notoriety when the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the missing comma created enough uncertainty to side with drivers. It gave grammar obsessed and those who revere the Oxford comma a chance to enjoy victory.

The dispute over a punctuation mark no bigger than the head of a pin comes in a country that has earned the reputation of the world capital of defamation. Legal experts say the missing apostrophe case in Australia, which has a complex web of libel laws and a history of rewarding plaintiffs with large sums of money, is far from surprising.

In 2019, for example, Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush received more than $ 2 million in his defamation case against Rupert Murdoch’s Nationwide News, the largest such payout to a single person in Australian history at the time. That same year, a billionaire businessman won a defamation case against a news agency that falsely linked him to a bribery case.

Court documents suggest that Mr. Zadravic apparently intended to add an apostrophe. Who hasn’t garbled grammar by firing a social media post in a fit of anger?

But the judge, Judith Gibson, wrote in her testimony: “The difficulty for the plaintiff is the use of the word ’employees’ in the plural. It can be considered unfortunate not to pay an employee’s pension entitlement; Not paying some or all of them looks deliberate. “

Judge Gibson noted that the lawsuit could cost Mr. Zadravic more than $ 180,000 and cited similar cases, including that of an Australian veterinarian who was awarded more than $ 18,000 after a former client posted defamatory reviews online. In the most recent case, it was not immediately clear what kind of appeal Mr Gan had sought from the court.

High-profile defamation accounts for only a small fraction of the lawsuits brought before Australian courts each year.

“The courts are flooded with claims,” ​​said Barrie Goldsmith, special counsel at Rostron Carlyle Rojas Lawyers. A Sydney-based attorney who has worked on libel cases for more than three decades added that such allegations would be impracticable in the United States, where the First Amendment protects freedom of expression.

Australia’s notoriously tough libel laws have been criticized by members of the local news media. A 2018 survey by the Australian Journalists’ Union found that almost a quarter of respondents said they received a news article that year for fear of libel allegations.

The dispute over the real estate agent’s Facebook post revolves around a missing apostrophe, but for others, misusing punctuation marks is actually a crime.

According to Lynne Truss in her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: “It doesn’t matter if you have a PhD and read Henry James twice. If you still insist on writing, ‘The finest food,’ you deserve to be struck by lightning, chopped up on the spot, and buried in an unmarked grave. “