Emails from a client accusing his lawyers of fraud were defamatory, the High Court has found in a preliminary judgment. John Sapsford, a long-standing client of London firm CJJ Law, sent six emails in 2023 after receiving an invoice for around £34,500 for work on a property investment, in which he repeatedly referred to the charges as fraudulent.
In CJ Jones Solicitors LLP (t/a CJJ Law) v Sapsford Mr Justice Griffiths ruled that five of the emails - sent to mostly mutual friends or acquaintances - purported to be statements of fact rather than expressions of opinion and were defamatory at common law. A further hearing as required by the 2013 Defamation Act will determine what harm, if any, was caused.
In the first hearing, to determine meaning, the court heard that Sapsford had been friends with Stephen Fairburn, a partner at CJJ Law, and had invested in a flat owned by Fairburn in Bayswater, London.
Sapsford was involved in a dispute about a loan with a business acquaintance and it was the firm’s case that it had been instructed by him personally and was entitled to charge for work done. The invoice for £34,500 covered work on some 1,255 emails at an hourly rate of £275.
Sapsford denied that he had ever agreed to chargeable work in respect of these emails. He described the attempt to charge him as ‘fraudulent’. The first of the six emails complained of was sent to the legal ombudsman and copied to other partners in the firm.
The firm told the court that the email’s meaning was that it had dishonestly charged Sapsford. The judge said ‘fraudulent’ conveyed dishonesty, and the email conveyed that the dishonesty was deliberate: that a fraud was being perpetrated by claiming these charges.
The judge said there was no proper basis for making this claim and it was an assertion made without context or explanation.
He also ruled that another email in which Sapsford referred to Fairburn as a ‘fraudster’ was defamatory, adding: ‘It is expressed in such a way as to be defamatory at common law, and not just banter. It is not mere vulgar abuse. It appears to be said with feeling and to convey a serious imputation about the character of Fairburn.’
