Wagners awarded $3.6m defamation payout

Denis, Neill, John and Joe Wagner have each been awarded $600,000 damages from the Nine Network and $300,000 from journalist Nicholas Cater over a 60 Minutes episode that aired in 2015 which inferred incorrectly that the devastating Grantham floods were the result of the Wagners failing to take steps to prevent a quarry wall on property they owned from collapsing.

In a Supreme Court judgement handed down on Friday Justice Peter Applegarth called the defamations "indefensible", finding that the Nine Network had been "recklessly indifferent as to the truth or falsity of those imputations".

Justice Applegarth said the insinuations that the Wagners were responsible for the flood, which killed 12 people were "extremely serious" and noted that the Nine Network had information that contradicted the allegations but did not broadcast it and that "belated and inadequate attempts" were made to seek a response from the Wagners but they did not include any part of the statement issued by the Wagners in the program.

Justice Applegarth was scathing of the Nine Network's "unjustifiable and continuing failure to retract or apologise by broadcasting an apology to the Wagners", which he said increased the effects on each of the four brothers.

"It also has meant that the effects of the broadcast on their reputations has continued and is greater than it would have been had an adequate apology been made and broadcast by the defendants," he said.

Justice Applegarth said to this date there had been a failure to properly apologise or withdraw the defamatory imputations.

"The sums awarded are intended to convince members of the public, who saw the 60 Minutes program or heard about it on the grapevine, that the defamatory imputations conveyed by it and by Mr Cater's statements on it are baseless," he said.

"They seek to compensate the Wagners, to the extent that money can, for the great harm that these indefensible defamations have caused."

On behalf of the four brothers, Denis Wagner said it was deeply concerning that the 60 Minutes program did not factually report all available information.

Neither Channel Nine nor Nick Cater apologised or attempted to correct the misinformation until after the jury determined the statements were seriously defamatory, he said.

"To compound the offensive nature of the program, the entire premise of the story "The Missing Hour" has been determined to be false," Mr Wagner said

"While 60 Minutes and Nick Cater alleged that the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry had incorrectly stated the time of the flood based on the Channel Nine helicopter logs, those logs have since been proven to be incorrect.

"As a family committed to Queensland and the Toowoomba region we will move forward knowing that when the media do not report in a fair and honest way, they can be held accountable.

"Unfortunately what will never change is the devastating impact of the Grantham Floods and we offer our most sincere thoughts to all those that were impacted and affected."