Arabic version: ماكنيس تعتزم الاستئناف في قضية التشهير ضد ريبل ويلسون

According to ABC News, Charlotte MacInnes’s lawyers have announced she plans to appeal after losing her defamation case against Rebel Wilson. MacInnes, 28, starred in Wilson’s directorial debut, The Deb, and sued over social media posts she said damaged her reputation.

The Federal Court heard disputed accounts during two weeks of hearings in late April about whether MacInnes made a sexual assault complaint against the film’s producer, Amanda Ghost, and later retracted it. Justice Elizabeth Raper dismissed the case on Wednesday, finding MacInnes had failed to establish that the material caused, or was likely to cause, serious harm.

Justice Raper found one post conveyed an imputation about MacInnes but was not defamatory, and found MacInnes had made the complaint. In her judgment, the judge described all three women as unreliable witnesses, saying the accounts of MacInnes and Ghost were inconsistent and that Wilson had a propensity to exaggerate and gave self-serving evidence at times.

Stewart O’Connell, senior defamation lawyer at O’Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors, said interpretations of Wilson’s posts could be argued on appeal and could potentially lead to a different verdict or a retrial. He said appeals are not uncommon, with three Federal Court judges considering legal arguments. MacInnes’s lawyers have 28 days from the Federal Court judgment to file a notice of intention to appeal.