A woman who sued a fellow Dainfern Golf Estate resident for R250,000 for defamation has lost her Johannesburg high court appeal to have her case upheld.
In a split decision by a Johannesburg high court bench, the case made against Jayne Healy, accused of damaging the reputation of Gisela van Stryp, was found to have been correctly dismissed by the lower court.
The case was about vindicating the dignity and reputation of Van Stryp, described as a professional woman (a business rescue practitioner) who was subjected to “embarrassing and humiliating insults” in posts that were published to about 1,800 members of the Dainfern Golf Estate Facebook group.
Group members were involved in a disagreement over whether jackals should be roaming freely in the estate. Van Stryp and some others felt that the jackals were mesopredators, posing a danger to other animals including domestic pets and also carrying rabies.
Healy and others disagreed, believing that the estate was a nature reserve and all wildlife within it — jackals included — should be left alone. Van Stryp would post news reports and other material on the group to encourage the debate.
But, while the debate was civil at first, it turned snappy on November 10 2021 when over a number of days Healy published seven posts directed at and involving Van Stryp, who felt the comments “severely insulted her person, good name and dignity”.
The first post was an image of a cat in a spiked vest, with a comment, “Gisela van Stryp maybe this will help the cats,” another stating “really you shouldn't be living in Africa” and the third claiming that Van Stryp had repeatedly published “false information on the group”.
One post referred to Van Stryp as “a B”, two others as stupid and another with a caricature of a dog with a blonde blunt-styled wig, in reference to her being “a Karen”.
Van Stryp’s counsel argued that the posts “... collectively create the impression that our client is not suitable to reside in Africa, that our client is a stupid keyboard muppet, that our client is a dog, that our client consistently posts false information, that our client has a B* problem and once again that she is stupid”.
They argued that while Healy could have retracted her entries or made an apology in an effort to resolve the conflict, she had preferred to leave Van Stryp affronted.
This was why Van Stryp had decided to sue her for R250,000 damages and seek an interdict directing her to remove the comments from Facebook, publish an apology and be restrained from publishing any comments about Van Stryp on any public platform. She claimed injury to her dignity and damage to her reputation.
In her pleadings Healy said some of her statements had been made in jest, while Van Stryp regarded them as an unwarranted slating that lowered her esteem.
The Johannesburg high court found that the magistrate presiding over the original trial had committed a material misdirection by excluding evidence of two witnesses called by Healy as irrelevant and inadmissible, tainting the judgment.
There is precious little on the record, other than Ms Van Stryp’s say-so, to show that Ms Van Stryp was subjectively hurt by Ms Healy’s rudeness.
— Court judgment
The magistrate also contended that a conversation between Healy and group member Karen Roets about Van Stryp — who was in disagreement with them over the cause of death of a hedgehog on the estate, alleged to have been killed by a jackal — there was nothing in the comments that appeared to injure Van Stryp’s reputation.
Another of Healy’s comments in the conversation was: “Now sweetheart if I had an issue with her please believe me you and everyone else will know about it, the facts she has a B problem with wild animals is a concern."
The magistrate also provided no insight into why the meaning of “B”, taken in context of the whole comment, meant “B* problem” rather than “Big problem”.
Van Stryp further took umbrage at Healy’s comments that “My tolerance for stupidity is not very good” and "... the only issue I have is stupid people and anyone who has a problem with the wildlife in this estate …"
Healy pleaded that the statement did not refer to Van Stryp by name, and the meaning of “stupid” in the context of the sentence was “misinformed”.
In another post Healy posted an image of a dog with a bob haircut with the caption “what's this dog's name?” together with the comment “it looks like a Karen”.
Healy noted that the image was removed by the page moderator, but in any case she had meant it in reference to her friend Karen Roets, whom she had been chatting to.
But Van Stryp argued that the only plausible explanation was that Healy was trying to caricature Van Stryp as a dog and brand her “a Karen” — constituting ridicule and contempt.
While acting judge John Meaden felt that Van Stryp had shown that she had been defamed and should be awarded R200,000 damages from Healy, judges Stuart Wilson and Elmien du Plessis disagreed.
Van Stryp and Healy agreed that they did not need to have their case retried and were happy to have the case decided on the evidence before court.
Wilson and Du Plessis agreed that the appeal should be dismissed, as had been the decision of the lower court. They felt the posts did not meet the requirements for defamation, and a reasonable person would not have understood the jest to denigrate Van Stryp.
There was also no basis on which to accept that Van Stryp had been referred to as a “b*” with the reasonable reader understanding it to be “part of the cut and thrust of a debate about what should be done about a jackal roaming a housing estate on which parties lived”.
They accepted that Healy’s comments could fairly be characterised as rude, but not to the extent that it tarnished Van Stryp’s reputation.
“Quite the opposite. They would have thought less of Ms Healy, because she was unable to keep to civil terms of debate,” the judges said, in finding no actionable insults had taken place.
“There is precious little on the record, other than Ms Van Stryp’s say-so, to show that Ms Van Stryp was subjectively hurt by Ms Healy’s rudeness. More fundamentally, though, we do not think that a reasonable person in Ms Van Stryp’s position could have found Ms Healy’s rudeness so insulting as to puncture their dignity. Those who engage in online debate about matters of mutual interest between neighbours ought reasonably to foresee that the criticism they sustain may be tart and, at times, discourteous. They will take that into the bargain, and they will not strain to take offence.”
Referring to the dog caricature, the judges said it appeared to have been another of Healy’s jokes.
“If she had portrayed Ms Van Stryp as a dog, and as a ‘Karen’ — a privileged, entitled woman with a thin skin and a quick temper — Ms Healy would have opened Ms Van Stryp up to ridicule. To do so would probably have been defamatory. Depending on the context, it might have been actionably insulting ... though she may have been able to escape liability on the basis that she meant no harm.”
However, it has not been established before court that the post actually referred to Van Stryp.
For these reasons, they felt interference in the lower court’s decision was not warranted and the case again was dismissed.
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