2014 February 6

Busseri v. Doe, 2014 ONSC 819

The Ontario Superior Court dismissed an application by the defendant to set aside a default judgment for libel damages over a series of serious defamatory posts on Stockhouse.com relating to the plaintiff CEO of a publicly-traded company. The default judgment was granted on January 7, 2013 for $200,000 damages, $3,500 costs and a permanent injunction.  The Court agreed, however, to hear submissions from the parties whether the $200,000 award was excessive and should be varied, as it appeared that the default judgment was based on an erroneous finding  by the Court that the defamatory posts involved 500,000 “hits” although the evidence tendered by the plaintiff was that the hits on the defamatory posts totalled in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.  In refusing to set aside the default judgment, the Court noted that the defendant’s evidence would not support a proposed defence of truth or fair comment; there had been no retraction or apology; the defendant had continued his campaign of defamation despite an interlocutory injunction; and the prejudice that would be caused to the plaintiff by re-opening the judgment would be significant.