The position at common law was quite clear. The common law rule that evidence could not be given, in mitigation of damages, of any recovery of damage or any action for damages by the plaintiff, against other persons in respect of statements to the same effect as that sued upon. Harrison v Pierce [2], Creevy v Carr [3] and Fresco v May [4], all cited in Mayne & McGregor on Damages, are to this effect. Section 12 of the Defamation Act altered this rule of law and permitted evidence to be given in mitigation of damages that the plaintiff had already recovered damages, or had brought actions for damages for libel and slander in respect of publication of similar words to those upon which the action was founded. It did not extend to actions which had not yet been brought. The rule, however, was merely procedural and did not require that all actions should be brought at the same time. The learned trial judge in feet did consider the fact that damages had already been awarded and the amounts of such daages. The only possible error he might have fallen into was in not expressly taking into account any amounts which might have been recovered against Mr Liyoka (if he were a separate tortfeasor) against whom an action was in being. I imagine that the learned trial judge did not consider that any material amount of damages could be receded from Mr Liyoka and so disregarded him. In my opinion there is no evidence that any material amount of damages could be recovered from Mr Liyoka. The onus of proving this lay on the defendant, present appellant, as it was a matter of mitigation. Even if the learned trial judge erred in law in failing to consider this possibility, I do not consider that in fact it would have caused any alteration in his estimate. In my opinion, grounds 3 and 4 of the Memorandum of Appeal must be rejected. As to ground 2 of the Grounds of Appeal, it seems to me that the learned trial judge did fully consider the fact that the respondent had already received a total of K30 000 and he did in fact take that into account. He assessed the total compensatory damages caused by the various libels at K30,000 and came to the conclusion that as K20,000