2015 January 12

Speck v. Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University, 2015 ONSC 137

The Ontario Superior Court set aside judgment in default of defence over an article written and published originally in The Journal (the Queen’s University student newspaper) in November, 2006, which was stored in the newspaper’s electronic archive and remained accessible on the Internet in the allegedly defamatory form until March, 2014. In addition to reviewing the well-established principles regarding setting aside default judgments, the Court referred to a complication for defendants arising from publication over extended periods of time on the Internet. “In particular, publication of the alleged libel arguably extended over the course of more than seven years, on an ongoing basis. In such circumstances, the realities of insurance coverage, (including the passage of successive periods of coverage, with possibly different insurers, and the common existence of “occurrence” versus “claims made” policies), makes it entirely unsurprising that the plaintiff’s claim may have triggered the possible involvement of four insurers, all of whom the defendant would have an obligation to contact and consult before responding to the plaintiff’s claim, in order to avoid doing anything that might risk voiding coverage that might otherwise be available.“