equal proportions for the total loss suffered by the plaintiff, and the total damages to
which the court considered the plaintiff was entitled was for example K30,000, this
would have been apportioned between the five defendants as to K6,000 each. But
inevitably in cases of this land the audiences reached by each news medium will
overlap to a greater or lesser degree the audience reached by another medium and,
consequently, it could not in such a case be said that the damages to which the plaintiff
was entitled in respect of the publication by any one medium was K6,000. Hence, if for
instance four of the five defendants were successful in their defences, the damages
awarded against the fifth defendant, sing the figures I have postulated above, would
certainly be greater than K6,000.

It was for this reason that in the Times Newspapers case [5] I considered that a
compensatory award of K10,000 was appropriate. This did not mean that I considered
that a proper compensatory award for the total loss suffered by the plaintiff by reason of
the publication of this libel by the newspapers and the radio and television series was
K40,000; for the reasons I have indicated I would regard an award of this magnitude as
excessive.

It is of course the duty of a court hearing a later action to take into account the damages
awarded in an earlier action in respect of the same or substantially the same libel. This
later court may be faced with the additional complication that an earlier court has
awarded both

compensatory and exemplary damages; in considering what

compensation to award in the later action I was at one stage in some doubt whether it
was not proper to have regard to the fact that the plaintiff had received exemplary
damages in the earlier action. I am satisfied, however, that, although logic demands that
account be taken of a sum of money which has in fact been received by the plaintiff,
albeit that it was awarded as a punishment against the defendant and given to the
plaintiff only because there was no one else to whom it could be given, to attempt to
adjust subsequent awards of compensatory damages on this ground would create even

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