CVM TELEVISION is appealing the jury's award of $20 million in damages for libel to Detective Sergeant Fabian Tewari.
In the grounds of appeal filed yesterday, CVM is seeking to get a new trial on the premise that Justice Donald McIntosh erred when he left the issue of qualified privilege for the jury to decide.
The Court of Appeal is also being asked to find that the judge erred in not determining, as a matter of law, that the first broadcast was covered by qualified privilege. CVM is contending as a result of that misdirection, compensation was made for the effects of two libels instead of one libel.
EXCESSIVE AWARD
CVM is contending that the damages awarded by the jury were excessive having regard to all the circumstances of the case.
A seven-member jury retired for half-an-hour in the Supreme Court on May 29 and found that the policeman had been libelled in two broadcasts on CVM-TV on November 12, 1998. The broadcasts related to a demonstration in Braeton, south St. Catherine, over a controversial police shooting in Phase Two, the previous day.
Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., filed the appeal yesterday.
