2012 October 17

Court v. Debaie, 2012 ABQB 640

The Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta concluded that the plaintiff had demonstrated an arguable or triable case that allegedly defamatory material posted on Facebook was published in Alberta. The Court accordingly dismissed a pre-trial application by the defendants for an Order that Ontario or Nova Scotia were more convenient jurisdictions.

In this case, the statement of claim alleged that in January, 2012, the defendants published defamatory comments on their Facebook pages which were then set to open access. “As a result, anyone with an Internet connection could view the comments. The posted comments would also appear on the “wall” of the Defendants’ Facebook “friends.” One defendant was alleged to have 286 friends; the other 51 at the time of the postings.

The Court held that:

“publication need not always be provided by direct evidence. Publication may be inferred from other evidence in appropriate cases. Justice Deschamps (in Crookes v Newton, SCC) was specific about this and held that ‘if a plaintiff proves facts from which it is reasonable to infer that the words were brought to the knowledge of some third person, that will establish a prima facie case of publication.”