All the glamour of a libel victory
She is also asked about her opinion on matters like rugby. It’s not so much whether she’s a fan of the rucking maul, but she is asked if she will be cheering on the guys at the next match.
So it was no surprise when she got a call seeking her opinion on a girlie calendar. It was November 2008, and Ryanair had just launched its annual charity calendar, which features cabin crew togged out in swimwear. Instead of Miss January and Miss November, they appear under labels like Miss Cockpit and Miss Fuelpump.
The calendar didn’t feature any Irish women, and the reporter was eager to know how Rosanna felt about this state of affairs. Not too hot, as it turns out.
She told the reporter: “If I was organising it, I would have made sure that Irish women were involved because it’s an Irish charity and Irish fundraising. Any person from any part of Europe would say that Irish women are gorgeous.”
A report carried in the following day’s Irish Independent related how Rosanna felt about the matter.
Up in Dublin Airport, Ryanair’s head of communications, Stephen McNamara, read the report in the newspaper. He didn’t feel too hot about Rosanna’s opinion andscripted a press release which was uploaded onto the airline’s website. In it, he referenced Rosanna’s opinion as being “bordering on racism”, “elitist”, “narrow-minded” and betraying “jealousy” on her part.
Back over in south Co Dublin, Rosanna’s dad, singer Chris de Burgh, didn’t feel too hot about McNamara’s opinion. He picked up the phone to Ryanair. In what will come as a surprise to anybody who ever tries to ring the airline, he got through to talk to a human being, McNamara’s assistant, Daniel de Carvalho.
De Burgh introduced himself. De Carvalho grew up in Germany, where de Burgh is popular. He recognised the name, and perhaps thought it was a common one in Ireland. “Like the singer,” Daniel said. “I am the singer,” Chris said. De Burgh had the Ryanair man’s full attention.
The singer was very angry at how his daughter was portrayed in the news release. He said he would sue the airline and McNamara if an apology wasn’t issued by the following Monday. According to de Carvalho, de Burgh also said he respected Ryanair. But he didn’t use the airline himself, as he had his own private plane.
He informed the press officer that he himself had successfully pursued 16 defamation actions. Within days, solicitors’ letters took flight. Rosanna felt she had been branded a racist. Initially, she wanted the low-fare airline to apologise and pay a “substantial” sum to charity for the damage that had been inflicted on her reputation. Ryanair, as is the airline’s wont, effectively told her to take a hike.
Unlike most libel actions, this baby ran all the way, ending up in the High Court last week. What unfolded was a near surreal scene, dripping with glamour and the sulphuric whiff of the corporate world’s ultimate tough guy. All it was missing was for de Burgh to burst into the courtroom, wielding an acoustic guitar, and belting out his 1982 hit, Don’t Pay The Ferryman.
Defending a libel action these days is a precarious business. Juries decide the size of an award, and who knows what they use to quantify loss of reputation, especially when the person in question has not suffered any obvious loss of income or status?
In recent years, a jury awarded PR executive Monica Leech €1.9 million for a false allegation that she was having an affair with former minister Martin Cullen. Another jury gave businessman Donal Kinsella €10m after it found his former employer had issued a press release inferring he had made an inappropriate advance on a female colleague. In fact, Kinsella had sleepwalked into her room naked three times in the middle of the night.
Against this background, it was unusual — some might say brave — for Ryanair not to settle with Davison at some point. The airline suffers some bad publicity. Frequently, the airwaves, letters pages of newspapers and websites carry complaints from passengers.
The bolshie managerial ethos cultivated by chief executive Michael O’Leary adds to the disdain some express for the airline. Yet, despite complaints, passenger numbers for the airline keep heading north, as does the bottom line. Last Tuesday, Ryanair announced a 26% increase in pre-tax profits to €401m, despite the effect of last year’s Icelandic ash cloud and the recession. By any standards, it was a phenomenal result.
But in the untamed world of libel juries, latent prejudices can be set loose. A cautious corporate strategy would have been to let it go and settle for a fraction of the potential cost.
But that’s not the O’Leary way. So the airline decided to meet the libel challenge head-on. Even more surprising was the decision by the airline to put the case down for trial. Usually in libel actions it is the plaintiff who waves an impending hearing around like a threat. Not for the first time, O’Leary chose to rush into the breach, hurrying along the day when he could see the whites of Miss World’s beguiling eyes.
The evidence frequently lurched from the comic to the surreal. Davison was crowned Miss World in 2003 and she currently earns her crust modelling. She also pens a column for the Evening Herald.
When she was told about the Ryanair news release, she checked it out and was “absolutely shocked and upset”.
She continued in the witness box on Tuesday, but by then her corner of the courtroom didn’t have a monopoly on glamour. A number of well-coifed women were sitting at the far side of the public bench from Miss World. Speculation was high that the knot of women might include Miss Cockpit, Miss Fuelpump, or even Miss Fuselage.
Rosanna explained to Ryanair’s lawyer, Martin Hayden, that her comments should be taken in the context of the economic meltdown. “The recession was kicking in and we were being told to support Irish,” Rosanna said.
Some people believe that top models inhabit a world of beautiful people, insulated from the woes of the great unwashed. Now the truth reared its head. Rosanna was fretting about the recession. The campaign to buy Irish informed her preference that Irish women be included in Ryanair’s girlie calendar.
At one point, near the end of her evidence, she was responding to a question from the lawyer, but he was looking down at notes. “I’d appreciate it if you listened when I’m talking to you,” she said.
Ryanair’s main witness was the author of the news release. Stephen McNamara told Hayden he is head of communications at Ryanair. Then he pointed out there wasn’t much to be head of, as his department only consisted of one other employee, Daniel de Carvalho. He couldn’t get his head around the pronunciation of Daniel’s surname, although Daniel has been working by his side for nearly three years.
He was taken through the traumatic events of November 2008. He said the calendar raises €100,000 annually for charity. He mentioned Ryanair being a low fare airline a few times. He was accused of trying to get in a plug for the airline.
McNamara said his motivation for writing the release was to ensure there was no bad publicity for the charity calendar. He said there is good publicity and bad publicity, but “when you’re selling something people are going to buy, no matter what, there’s no negative pick-up”.
McNamara smiled a lot in the box and laughed here and there. If the case was causing him any stress, he certainly didn’t show it. He told of the urgency to sell the calendar by year’s end. “If you don’t sell it by Christmas, you’d be shot,” he said. He looked down at a colleague in the public gallery and then he broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, not actually shot.” Everybody laughed at that.
Later, Rosanna’s counsel, Jim O’Callaghan, asked him whether his reference to being shot was associated with the management style of Michael O’Leary. McNamara smiled and said no.
He went into the selection process for the calendar. “It’s very competitive,” he said. For some of the women “it takes up to a year to get into shape to be in the calendar.” He referred repeatedly to the “girls” — he never called them women.
The following day, two of the “girls” stepped up. Stanka Haluskova was Miss Wet in 2009. She had been “shocked” and “disappointed” by the remarks of Miss World. Her fellow Slovak, Ingrid Pilkova, experienced similar negative feelings. She was Miss Mechanic. “I don’t think this calendar was about nationalities,” she said.
The court heard about Ryanair’s previous form in responding to critics of the calendar. British Labour MEP Mary Honeyball had claimed the airline pressurised cabin crew to get involved. The response from McNamara referred to the MEP as “Mad Mary” and “Nutball”.
However, the witness agreed the politician wasn’t criticising Ryanair per se. “A criticism of Ryanair would be that ‘the plane was slightly late’,” said McNamara. Even Rosanna Davison joined the laughter that accompanied that line.
There was also mention of a ruling from Judge Peter Kelly last year, who said Ryanair and the truth made uncomfortable bedfellows. That case involved a press release in which former minister Noel Dempsey was referred to as “dozy” and “dolittle Dempsey”.
Judge Eamon de Valera looked on. These days, High Court judges hear copious evidence of broken lives and debt that stretches out to infinity. This stuff was from a different world.
Summing up, Ryanair’s man wondered about where Miss World was coming from. “What world does she live in? What world does she think the rest of us live in?”
Davison’s second senior counsel Declan Doyle also wondered about the world. “Let’s look at it in the real world,” he said.
The jury, too, live in their own world. They retired yesterday soon after 3pm and returned with their verdict at 6pm. They decided Ryanair had defamed Davison and awarded €40,000 in compensatory damages and another €40,000 in aggravated. The latter was awarded in compensation for the manner in which Ryanair conducted itself since the press release was first issued.
After the court rose, Davison approached her lawyers. “I’ve just sent my dad a text,” she said. “We’ve won.”
Costs for the case could be anything north of €250,000, but with litigants like these, who’s counting?
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