The legal battle between former Carlton Football Club president Luke Sayers and his estranged wife, Cate Sayers, will continue to be heard in the Victorian Supreme Court, following a judge's ruling on Wednesday.
Justice Andrew Watson dismissed an application by Luke Sayers to transfer the defamation case to the Family Court of Australia, a move that would have restricted media coverage due to the Family Court's strict confidentiality provisions.
Cate Sayers is suing her husband for defamation, alleging that he falsely accused her of posting an explicit image to his X (formerly Twitter) account in January last year. The image, which showed a man's genitalia, was posted and then deleted about 15 minutes later, with a subsequent post claiming the account had been hacked.
An internal AFL inquiry cleared Luke Sayers of any wrongdoing, but Cate Sayers claims she was blamed in a statutory declaration provided to the inquiry. She denies posting the image, stating she was not staying in the same hotel as her husband at the time.
In her legal submissions, Cate Sayers argued that transferring the case to the Family Court would prevent her from publicly vindicating her reputation if she were successful. Her barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, stated in May that her client learned from the media that she was being blamed.
In his judgment, Justice Watson noted that an important function of defamation law is to allow a successful plaintiff to vindicate their reputation, and that the Family Court's restrictions on publication would undermine this purpose. He ruled that it was not in the interests of justice to transfer the proceeding.
However, the judgment was not entirely in Cate Sayers' favor. Justice Watson also dismissed her request for a jury trial, meaning the case will be heard by a judge alone. The trial is scheduled for November.
