Defamation and Media Law
Panday v Alexander
Mickela Panday v Phillip Alexander, High Court of Trinidad and Tobago, 8 November 2023.
Matter overview
On 17 July 2020, in the middle of the general election campaign, Phillip Edward Alexander went live on Facebook after Mickela Panday's Patriotic Front reversed its decision to contest the election. In a broadcast carried on his personal page and on one associated with his party, he suggested that she had taken "Syrian money" to withdraw and split the vote.
The accusation was false. It was also public, and it stayed online after the broadcast ended. For a political leader in the middle of a campaign, an unfounded claim of corrupt foreign money is about as damaging as an allegation can be. Panday sued in the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago.
Strategic approach
The claim was built on three things the court would have to accept: that the words were about Panday, that they were defamatory and that they were false. The broadcast left little room on the first two. The words named her and carried a plain meaning: that she had taken foreign money to corrupt an election. Falsity was met head-on; nothing supported the suggestion.
From there the case turned to harm and to conduct. Reputation was set in its full context: from the Panday name to the seriousness of an accusation made in the middle of a campaign. The medium was pressed, not played down. A Facebook Live is public and immediate; it also lingers online long after the broadcast ends.
The last move was on damages. General damages answer the harm to reputation; exemplary damages answer the conduct and are kept for behaviour a court wants to mark. The argument was that this was such a case. The court agreed and added TT$250,000 to the TT$600,000 for the reputational harm.
Result
The High Court found for Panday, for whom Justin Phelps appeared. Justice Rampersad awarded TT$600,000 in general damages and TT$250,000 in exemplary damages; that is TT$850,000 in all, plus costs of TT$97,750. The award shows how courts in Trinidad and Tobago now approach social-media defamation. Alexander signalled an appeal, so the figures here are those set by the High Court in November 2023.
The law has kept moving. In 2026 the Privy Council held, in a separate claim against the same defendant, that damages for a string of related publications must be assessed as one overall injury. The Panday award sits within that developing law on Caribbean defamation and Facebook Live.
