2017 September 28

Malak v. Hanna,  2017 BCSC 1739

The British Columbia Supreme Court held that the corporate and three individual defendants were jointly liable for the many defamatory websites, blogs, YouTube videos, emails and other internet publications targeting the individual and corporate plaintiffs.  Most of the defamatory publications involved an internet article (“The Uncovered Article”) which the Court characterized as a “hit piece” targeting the plaintiffs and which was “posted on a flotilla of domain names surrounding the corporate plaintiffs’ actual domain names or using [the individual plaintiff’s] name.”  The court held that pseudonyms “Jim Arthur” and “Mike Flagger” were used by the defendant Hanna in relation to defamatory publications, to the knowledge of the defendants Jackman, Paine and Valley Traffic Systems Inc.  Defences of qualified privilege, fair comment and justification were rejected and held that the defendants “shared the predominant purpose of destroying, diminishing or undermining” the reputation of the plaintiffs pursuant to a common design.