In our blog Toronto Defamation Lawyers – Libel and Slander Law in Ontario, we suggest that in order to be successful on a defamation claim, one would have to prove that the allegedly defamatory publication was “published”, among other things. The court of appeal has provided some clarity on what it means to “publish” defamatory content. In Zoutman v. Graham, 2020 ONCA 767 (CanLII), the court contends on an appeal from a summary judgment motion, that a defamation claim requires proof that the “words were communicated to at least one person other than the plaintiff”. On the original summary judgment motion, the motions judge acknowledged that there was no evidence that the allegedly defamatory postings were viewed by anyone other than the parties and their lawyers. However, the motions judge drew an “inference of publication” from the totality of the circumstances. In drawing the inference of publication, the motions judge … Read More
B.C. Court Claims Jurisdiction over International Online Defamation Case
This blog post is further to our blog on the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) decision in Haaretz.com v. Goldhar, 2018 SCC 28 (CanLII) (“Haaretz”) wherein the SCC opined that Israel was a more convenient forum for an online defamation claim brought by the plaintiff in Ontario (even though the SCC recognized that Ontario had jurisdiction over the matter). The SCC considered a number of factors in its decision (all outlined in our blog). In the recent Supreme Court of British Columbia (“BCSC”) decision, Giustra v Twitter, Inc., 2021 BCSC 54 (CanLII) (“Giustra”), the BCSC confirmed that even where jurisdiction is found, a court can decline to exercise its jurisdiction under the principle that its court is not the most convenient forum for the hearing of the dispute (largely following the tenets laid out in Haaretz). The court in Giustra cited Haaretz in pointing out that the applicable law in … Read More
Toronto Defamation Lawyers – Libel and Slander Law in Ontario
Defamation is the tort of false publication (whether written or oral). Typically, a publication which tends to lower a person’s reputation in the opinion of reasonable members of society, or to expose a person to hatred, contempt or ridicule, is defamatory and will attract liability. The major piece of legislation governing the law of defamation in Ontario is the Libel and Slander Act. According to the Act, you can be defamed in two ways: via either (1) Libel and/or (2) Slander. What is Libel? Defamatory communications may be by words, pictures, sounds, or other forms of communication. They may be published on the internet, in social media postings, on websites, online reviews, chat rooms, or in other forms of broadcast. The dissemination of such defamatory comments or communications to the public is libelous. What is Slander? Slander is the public utterance of words that are meant to disparage a person … Read More