LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) - Britain's Trinity Mirrornewspaper group will appeal against a court ruling ordering itto pay a total of 1.2 million pounds ($1.9 million) in damagesto eight phone-hacking victims, arguing the amount is"disproportionate", it said on Thursday.
The group, which owns the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirrortabloid newspapers, had raised its provision to deal with thefallout from phone-hacking from 12 million pounds to 28 millionpounds following the May 21 ruling by a High Court judge.
The amounts awarded by the judge were much larger than thoseobtained by other victims of phone-hacking by journalists inearlier out-of-court settlements, potentially raising the costof dealing with any future claims.
"MGN Limited has already accepted that it should payappropriate compensation to individuals who were the target ofphone-hacking," Trinity Mirror said, referring to its subsidiarythat owns the Mirror titles.
"However, we believe that the basis used for calculatingdamages in the judgment is incorrect and the amounts awarded bythe judge are excessive and disproportionate," it said.
The company said there remained uncertainty as to howmatters would progress and it would make further announcementsif there were any significant developments or if its estimatedfinancial exposure were to materially change.
Shares in Trinity Mirror fell 4 percent in the minutes afterthe announcement was made.
The victims awarded damages were actress Sadie Frost,retired footballer Paul Gascoigne, BBC executive Alan Yentob,three TV soap opera actors, a TV producer and a flight attendantwho had dated former England footballer Rio Ferdinand.
The eight claimants sought damages after reporters seekingscoops listened to their voicemail messages, leading in somecases to salacious stories and to the victims suspecting thoseclose to them of leaking information to the press.
The May 21 ruling was the first time a civil lawsuit relatedto phone-hacking was decided by a judge. Previous damagesagainst both Trinity Mirror and Rupert Murdoch's News UK group were settled out of court.
The phone-hacking scandal erupted in 2011 when it wasrevealed that some staff at Murdoch's News of the World tabloidhad routinely listened to private voicemail messages, includingthose of a murdered schoolgirl.
Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old paper and police launcheda vast investigation into phone-hacking and other suspectedillegal practices by tabloid newspapers. At first the focus wasmostly on Murdoch's titles, but it later widened to the TrinityMirror newspapers.
($1 = 0.6482 pounds) (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Kate Holton)