Background Facts of the Dispute
In Johnson v Helm [2025] EWHC 1546 (KB), a domestic building dispute gave rise to a defamatory online review. The defendant, Mr Stephen Helm, had hired the claimant, Mr Benjamin Johnson, to install a kitchen. After the work, Mr Helm posted a scathing review of Mr Johnson’s workmanship on a public website. In that review he alleged, among other things, that Mr Johnson “damaged everything”, that he fitted plumbing so poorly it caused waste from a toilet to back up into the dishwasher and washing machine, that he “negligently cut out the backs of units”, and that Mr Johnson “admitted liability” by refunding the customer’s deposit. These remarks were highly damaging to Mr Johnson’s reputation as a tradesman.
The agreed meaning of the words complained was set out in paragraph 9 of the Particulars of Claim and expressly admitted by the defendant in paragraph 8 of the Defence. The meaning, as pleaded by the claimant and accepted by the defendant, was as follows:
- That the claimant had undertaken the works described and caused the damage described.
- With regard to the words “admitted liability”, that the claimant had admitted to the defendant that he had made the errors described and caused the damage.
The central issue in the case was therefore not the defamatory nature of the words, but their legal character. The question was whether these allegations were presented as statements of fact or as statements of opinion. This distinction was critical because it determined which defences would be available to the defendant.
The Libel Claim and Preliminary Issues
Mr Johnson sued for libel in the High Court, King’s Bench Division, Media and Communications List, claiming that the online review contained false and defamatory allegations that caused serious harm to his reputation. In his Particulars of Claim, Mr Johnson set out the specific statements complained of, as summarised above, and asserted that those allegations were untrue and had caused serious damage to his professional reputation. Since the meaning of the words, and their defamatory effect, was agreed between the parties, the sole question for the preliminary trial was their classification as fact or opinion.
In response to the claim, Mr Helm admitted publishing the review but denied liability on two alternative grounds. First, he pleaded the defence of truth under section 2 of the Defamation Act 2013, maintaining that the factual allegations in the review were substantially true. Secondly, he pleaded the defence of honest opinion under section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013, arguing that any evaluative or inferential remarks in the review were his genuinely held opinions on the matter. It is common and permitted for a defamation defendant to advance both truth and honest opinion in the alternative. The logic is that if a statement is found to be one of fact, the truth defence may apply, whereas if it is an expression of opinion, the honest opinion defence would be the appropriate shield. Mr Helm’s case was that phrases like “damaged everything” or “admitted liability” were value laden comments or conclusions rather than objective facts, and that an honest person could have held those views given the underlying events that he also set out in the review.
Mr Johnson’s reply put Mr Helm to strict proof of the truth of all factual allegations and denied that the statements were mere opinions honestly held. He maintained that the review conveyed factual accusations of incompetence rather than subjective commentary. No allegation of malice was made at this stage, so the honest opinion defence would succeed if its statutory conditions were met. Given the narrow issue to be resolved, the Court ordered a preliminary trial of the fact versus opinion question, with Mr Justice Richard Spearman hearing the matter on 20 June 2025.
Legal Framework: Distinguishing Fact and Opinion
A defamatory statement of fact is an allegation of something concrete that can be proven true or false, whereas a statement of opinion, the modern statutory term for what was historically called fair comment, is a value judgment or conclusion, a personal view that is not capable of definitive proof. For example, “the builder used substandard materials that collapsed within a week” would be a factual assertion, while “the builder was extremely careless and did a terrible job” would typically be understood as an opinion or evaluative comment.
Under section 3 Defamation Act 2013 , the first condition of the honest opinion defence is that the statement complained of was a statement of opinion. A defendant cannot avail himself of the honest opinion defence unless the words are identifiable as opinion. The test is objective, assessed from the standpoint of the hypothetical ordinary reasonable reader in context. The courts consider the overall context, content, and presentation of the words. Several guiding principles emerge from the case law.
Recognisability as Opinion
The statement must be something the reader would recognise as the writer’s deduction, view, or impression, rather than a literal report of a specific fact. Certain linguistic cues signal opinion. For example, describing workmanship as “negligent” or “appalling”, or saying a tradesman is “to be avoided at all costs”, suggests a value judgment. By contrast, a bald assertion of a specific event, such as “X did Y”, or a precise allegation will tend to be read as fact.
Stated Basis for the Comment
If the publication sets out the underlying facts on which a remark is based, or if those facts are already known to readers, it is more likely the remark will be understood as the author’s opinion or inference drawn from those facts. An unsupported defamatory remark with no factual context, called a bare comment may be treated as an allegation of fact, on the reasoning that readers will assume there are unstated factual grounds for the criticism.
In short, an opinion needs some indicated foundation in objective facts. Otherwise the law may infer a factual imputation.
Context and Audience Expectations
The wider context in which the statement appears can colour its interpretation. For example, readers expect a consumer review to reflect the personal views and experience of the reviewer. Online review platforms are generally understood as forums for subjective customer opinions, often strongly expressed, albeit those opinions may include or be based on assertions of fact about what occurred. In contrast, statements made in a news report or stated as neutral fact carry more factual weight. In this case, the impugned statements were made in an online customer review, a medium that typically primes readers to expect a one sided, subjective critique. The tone of the language, including phrases like “damaged everything” and the admonition to “avoid him at all costs”, further suggests the author venting an opinion based on a bad experience, rather than impartially narrating historical facts.
Applying the Principles in Johnson v Helm
Applying these principles, the Court considered how the ordinary reader would have perceived Mr Helm’s review. Mr Johnson’s counsel argued that phrases such as “damaged everything” and “admitted liability”, especially taken in isolation, would likely be read as concrete allegations of fact unless clearly signposted as hyperbole or interpretation. They warned that an average reader could take “admitted liability” at face value, analogous to saying someone “admitted guilt”, which ordinarily denotes a factual event, an admission, rather than recognising it as the reviewer’s opinion.
The Defendant argued the review context and the fact that the post did detail specific problems with the work. They argued that the impugned words were value judgments flowing from those described facts. Any reader would understand “damaged everything” as obvious hyperbole, a frustrated customer’s exaggeration, rather than a literal claim that every single thing was destroyed. Similarly, “admitted liability by refunding a deposit” was said to be clearly an inferential comment. The ordinary reader would not think Mr Johnson declared “I admit I was liable”, but rather would see that the reviewer was opining that the act of giving a refund amounted to an admission of fault. Since the review did enumerate the factual problems encountered, namely the backed up pipes and the cut out units, the defence argued that the broader condemnations were understood as commentary based on those disclosed facts. In essence, when facts are stated and a conclusion is drawn, the law tends to classify the conclusion as opinion so long as the facts are apparent to the reader.
The High Court’s Judgment: Fact or Opinion
Richard Spearman K.C delivered a reserved judgment on the preliminary issues. The crux of the judgment, was the classification of each of the principal statements as fact or opinion. Richard Spearman K.C approached this task by analysing the contentious words in their context, one by one, in light of the legal principles. His conclusions can be summarised as follows.
“Damaged everything”
The judge held that the phrase “he damaged everything” would be understood by the ordinary reasonable reader as a statement of opinion, not a literal assertion of fact. The body of the review consisted of a list of specific things Mr Johnson was said to have done wrong, such as blocked pipes and cut out units, followed by the reviewer’s strongly worded views based on those events, including the warning that the tradesman should be “avoided at all costs”. In that context, “damaged everything” appeared as emphatic shorthand for the overall effect of the various deficiencies described, rather than a precise claim that every single item was in fact ruined. An ordinary reader would recognise this phrase as the kind of exaggerated verdict a displeased customer might give, essentially a hyperbolic value judgment on the quality of the work, drawn from the specific problems mentioned. The judge pointed out that the review read as a personal complaint, not an impartial report, and the phrase itself was figurative. Accordingly, “damaged everything” was ruled to be a comment or opinion about the work’s quality, not an objective statement of concrete fact.
“Admitted liability”
This phrase was also found to be an expression of opinion in context. Spearman J acknowledged that on its face, saying “he admitted liability” could suggest a factual scenario, namely that Mr Johnson explicitly admitted fault or legal liability. However, the crucial point was that the review did not report any direct confession by Mr Johnson; instead, it mentioned that Mr Johnson had refunded the deposit to Mr Helm. In an informal online review, an ordinary reader would not take “admitted liability” to mean that Mr Johnson literally said those words, absent any indication of such a conversation. Rather, readers would likely understand it as the reviewer’s interpretation of the refund, essentially the reviewer opining that, by giving the money back, the builder was tacitly admitting fault. The judgment put the phrase “admitted liability” in quotation marks to signal that this was the reviewer’s observation based on the refund provided rather than any factual admission by the claimant. Thus, “admitted liability” was classified as an inferential comment, a strong insinuation perhaps, but still an opinion, which means Mr Helm can seek to defend it under honest opinion rather than having to prove any literal admission, since no such literal admission occurred.
Specific allegations of poor work
The remaining statements in the review, namely that Mr Johnson “fitted pipes in such a way that sewage backed up into the appliances” and that he “negligently cut out the backs of kitchen units”, were unequivocally treated as statements of fact. These parts of the review were clear descriptions of concrete historical events or conditions and their outcomes. An ordinary reader would understand these sentences as objective assertions about what actually occurred during the job, not as mere opinion or exaggeration. Unlike the broad, hyperbolic phrases discussed above, these claims have a specific and verifiable content. Accordingly, the judge had little difficulty classifying these allegations as factual in nature. There was no suggestion that statements like these were meant figuratively or as mere insult; they were presented as part of the narrative of what allegedly happened. Therefore, they fell squarely on the fact side of the line. The upshot is that these specific assertions of substandard work will be treated as factual allegations, which Mr Helm can only defend by proving their substantial truth, since the honest opinion defence cannot apply to pure statements of fact.
In summary, Richard Spearman K.C drew a careful line through the content of the review. The concrete, detailed accusations of what Mr Johnson did wrong in plumbing and carpentry are statements of fact, whereas the more general or conclusory defamatory remarks, that he “damaged everything” and “admitted liability”, are statements of opinion. This nuanced outcome reflects the courts’ meticulous phrase by phrase approach in mixed content defamation cases.
The judge’s reasoning hewed closely to established principles. He examined each statement in context, considered the overall tone and purpose of the publication, and asked how the reasonable reader would likely understand each impugned phrase. He found that the broad contentious phrases were the author’s evaluative shorthand or observations based on the other, more concrete allegations in the review. Meanwhile, the concrete allegations themselves remained factual. Importantly, because the factual substratum was laid out in the post, the judge viewed the sweeping remarks as comments with an evident basis, namely the specific incidents described, rather than unsupported slurs. This reasoning aligned with the legal principle that a defamatory comment must have or indicate an objective basis to be protected as opinion.
Conclusion and Implications
The High Court’s ruling on these preliminary issues has defined the path for the remainder of the case. By classifying which parts of the publication are fact and which are opinion, the Court has effectively allocated the available defences. The factual allegations, the claims about faulty plumbing and carpentry, will engage the defence of truth. Mr Helm will bear the burden at trial of proving those accusations are substantially true if he is to avoid liability on those points. Conversely, the opinions, the hyperbolic conclusions that Mr Johnson “damaged everything” and “admitted liability”, cannot be proved true or false in a strict sense, but Mr Helm can defend them by establishing the elements of honest opinion. Chiefly, that they were his genuinely held opinions based on the facts that existed and that he indicated, at least in general terms, the basis of those opinions. In this case, the requirement of indicating the basis is plainly met, since the review itself sets out the underlying factual story that led to the opinions. Thanks to the Court’s rulings, there is now no ambiguity as to which defence applies to which statements in the review.
In practical terms, the outcome was something of a mixed result. Mr Helm succeeded in having two of the most damaging allegations categorised as opinion, meaning he does not have to prove that Mr Johnson “damaged everything” or made any formal admission. He only needs to show that those were opinions an honest person could have held given what happened. This is a significant advantage for the defence, since the honest opinion route is generally easier than proving truth.
However, Mr Johnson succeeded in keeping the core specific allegations in the case as actionable facts, which means the truth of those claims will be rigorously tested if the matter proceeds. Had the judge instead classified those specific allegations as opinions as well, Mr Johnson’s claim would have been in serious jeopardy, because the honest opinion defence could then defeat the claim without any need to establish truth. As it stands, the claimant has the reassurance that the most concrete accusations must either be proven true or else he will be vindicated on those. Both parties thus emerge with partial victories. Mr Helm’s exposure is limited on the broad comments, but Mr Johnson’s claim remains alive on the key factual allegations.
Even in casual, informal internet review sites, some statements will carry the weight of fact and others opinion, and courts will carefully dissect the language and context to tell the difference. Broad, evaluative assertions or conclusions in a review, especially when supported by a recitation of specific examples, are likely to be treated as the reviewer’s opinion, whereas detailed allegations of specific misconduct remain matters of fact to be proved or disproved. Each category of statement must be defended, and if false, will incur liability on its own terms.
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