Solicitor obtains libel damages award against former client despite pleading error

Judgment was handed down in Conroy v Stojek [2026] EWHC 2429 (KB) on 22 September 2026. The underlying facts are unremarkable. Mr Conroy is a solicitor and principal of K.J. Conroy & Co. He provided services to Mr Stojek, who later complained about the delivery of those services and fees charged, and refused to pay his bill. The firm sued over the unpaid invoice, obtained judgment for a little over £16,000, and then a charging order over Mr Stojek’s home.

In response to this, Mr Stojek published a 1-star Google review on K.J. Conroy & Co.’s Google entry in the following terms:-

“Do not use. Very awful man. Reviews your case first to see how much money you have then rips you off. He makes massive mistakes then trys [sic] to take your house and charge you for his own mistake. In court he attends himself and is absolutely pathetic. Be AWARE he is a fraudster and instead of dealing with a complaint he will take your house over a small amount of money which shouldn’t have been due as his mistake nearly cost me everything.”

Libel proceedings were threatened, but no resolution was reached. Draft Particulars of Claim and a Claim Form were sent to Mr Stojek, who claimed his address was incorrect (but refused to provide his correct address for service). When issuing proceedings, Mr Conroy made a series of pleading and procedural errors, of the type which are normally highly damaging (if not fatal) to a claim. In this case, however, those errors forgiven by the Court.

Issuing proceedings

Mr Conroy issued proceedings in the Birmingham District Registry. This is the first procedural error. The proceedings ought to have been issued in the Media and Communications List (‘MAC List’) at the Royal Courts of Justice, pursuant to Civil Procedure Rule 53.1(3), which states that a claim for defamation must be issued in the MAC List.

The Birmingham District Registry did not, as it perhaps ought to have done, immediately transfer the claim to the MAC List. Instead, it gave Mr Conroy permission to serve by email, and service was effected on 19 August 2025. Mr Stojek did not respond to the claim, and default judgment was entered on 2 October 2025. It was at that point that the claim was transferred to the MAC List, for a damages hearing.

Transfer of proceedings

On transfer, a case management conference was listed for 18 February 2026. Before that, however, Mr Stojek applied to set aside the default judgment (on 19 January 2026). Deputy Master Marzec refused that application on the basis that it was made after an inexcusable delay, and he did not appear to have a defence with a reasonable prospect of success.

However, rather than proceed directly to a hearing to determine the level of damages, the Deputy Master alerted the parties to a significant deficiency in the Particulars of Claim, observing “that there was a noticeable absence of any pleaded particulars of the Claimant’s case as to serious harm” to Mr Conroy’s reputation. This is a requirement set out in CPR Practice Direction 53B paragraph 4.2(3), which states that the Particulars of Claim must set out the facts and matters relied upon to satisfy the ‘serious harm’ test in section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013.

If the claim had been issued in the MAC List, it is possible that a specialist judge would not have entered default judgment at all until this defect was remedied. In this case, default judgment had already been entered, and a set aside application refused.

The Deputy Master also alerted Mr Conroy to his failure to specify on the Claim Form that an injunction was sought (and, presumably, he had not paid the court fee for non-monetary relief). This issue fell away (for the time being) as Mr Stojek offered an undertaking to remove the review (and did so).

Permission to amend

The Deputy Master “directed that the Claimant amend his case to set out his case on serious harm more fully”.

The Deputy Master provided Mr Conroy with some assistance, stating at the hearing “even if one person had read the review and formed a negative impression of the Claimant as a result, that could constitute serious harm to reputation, given the seriousness of the allegations made”. This formed the basis of what would later become Mr Conroy’s inferential case on serious harm.

Mr Conroy did amend his case on 2 March 2026, and a remedies hearing was listed.

While it is possible that there was some agreement between Mr Conroy and Mr Strojek as to how to proceed from that point, it is not referred to in the judgment. From reading the judgment, it appears as though Mr Conroy was permitted to amend his Particulars of Claim without disturbing the default judgment that had been entered despite the failure to particularise serious harm. The effect was that Mr Stojek was served with Amended Particulars of Claim in circumstances where he had already ‘lost’, and was not given an opportunity to defend it. That is most irregular, and is perhaps a consequence of the Deputy Master’s finding (in deciding the set aside application) that Mr Stojek did not have a defence with a reasonable prospect of success.

There remains, though, a question about the procedural fairness of an unrepresented party being served with an Amended Particulars of Claim already knowing the claim is lost. It also creates a situation where Mr Stojek was described as not having a defence with reasonable prospects of success before being able to advance a positive case that Mr Conroy had not successfully passed the serious harm test.

Outcome

Mr Stojek did have an opportunity to address the case on serious harm at the remedies hearing on 16 July 2026. He did so by submitting that the mere fact that a defamatory allegation is serious does not, absent evidence of impact, prove £30,000’s worth of harm. This appears – from what is included in the judgment – to suggest that Mr Stojek was contesting the value of the serious harm, and not whether Mr Conroy had actually met the threshold for serious harm generally. The Deputy Master accepted the submission, but pointed out that, by the same token, the absence of evidence does not mean the absence of harm.

In support of his claim to £30,000 in damages, Mr Conroy asserted (when cross examining Mr Stojek) that the review was a lie, and that it had been intended to cause harm to Mr Conroy. The Deputy Master pointed out that, once again, Mr Conroy’s claim suffered from a pleading deficiency: there was no pleaded case on aggravated damages or the state of mind of Mr Stojek. Consequently, they were not matters relevant to the assessment of damages.

The Deputy Master awarded £9,500 in damages.

Mr Conroy persisted in his claim for an injunction, notwithstanding (i) that it did not appear on his claim form (though it is unclear whether that may have been amended in the interim), (ii) that Mr Stojek had given an undertaking and complied with it, and, perhaps most importantly, (iii) that his (Mr Conroy’s) own evidence was that Mr Stojek did not threaten to republish the review. The Deputy Master did not grant the injunction sought, and described it as “not appropriate”.

Comment

Specialist practitioners (especially defendant lawyers) will look at this case with interest, and see a series of opportunities that could have been seized upon by Mr Stojek to improve his position in the litigation – and potentially even to successfully defend it.

Procedural missteps and non-compliance with rules and practice directions (which non-specialists often understandably overlook) can lead to adverse costs awards early in proceedings. Such awards change not only the momentum of the litigation, but can have a significant effect on settlement negotiations.

In this case, Mr Stojek properly advised by specialist lawyers, could have contested the forum in which the claim was issued (forcing an early transfer), raised the pleading deficiency proactively and sought to have the claim struck out.

Even after that, Mr Stojek may have had a better case on ‘reference’ than appears from the judgment. The Deputy Master stated: “Although this was posted as a review of the firm, it clearly referred to an individual, namely “a man”, who would have been understood by readers to be the man providing legal services under the firm’s auspices. Sensibly, the Defendant made no challenge or even suggested that the review would not have been understood to refer to the Claimant”. However, there are three men offering legal services at K.J. Conroy & Co., and there seems to have been no case advanced or considered on reference being obviously to the eponymous Mr Conroy rather than to one of the other men.

While Mr Conroy may be frustrated that the procedural missteps significantly delayed obtaining the judgment, and that the claim resulted in no injunction and a lower damages award than he sought, on balance he should be thankful that Mr Stojek was seemingly not in a position to take full advantage of his errors.