2013 March 25

Asselin v. McDougall and Moviemat Entertainment Ltd., 2013 ONSC 1716

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the application of the plaintiff, a municipal official employed by the town of Renfrew, for a pre-trial injunction regarding two videos made by the defendants and comments on YouTube posted by the defendants and others in relation to the videos. The defendants made the videos to protest alleged difficulties with municipal officials over the defendants’ decision to operate a pornography store on the town’s main boulevard. The plaintiff argued that the defendants were liable not only for their own comments, but those posted by others which the plaintiffs characterized as “cyber bullying.” After noting that a pre-trial injunction is an “extraordinary remedy, granted sparingly, in the clearest of cases, and only to the extent necessary,” the Court held that it was for a jury to find that “the Defendants deliberately adopted and endorsed the opinion of others, having regard to all of the circumstances, including the involvement of others who made comments of a defamatory nature against the Plaintiff and that of YouTube.”