2022 February 3

Sabaratnam v. Mooka, 2022 ONSC 4779

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded the plaintiff life insurance salesperson $75,000 general damages and $25,000 punitive damages over a series of defamatory website articles in the Tamil language.  The Court noted that the defendants did not adduce any evidence supporting the substantial truth of the defamatory statements and stated they appeared to be based on speculation by third parties.  The Court also held the defendants took no steps to confirm the truth of the defamatory statements, before or after their publication.  The defence of responsible communication on matters of public interest was rejected because the defendants were not diligent in trying to verify the defamatory statements.  Moreover, the defendants did not seek the plaintiff’s side of the story. Qualified privilege did not apply because of the wide dissemination of the serious libels on the Internet.  The Court also found the defendants were reckless as to the truth of the words they published.