2017 December 1

Hearn v. McLeod Estate, 2017 ONSC 7212

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted a pre-trial injunction prohibiting two of the individual defendants from any and all direct communications with employers of an expert witness retained by the plaintiff, including all letters, emails under any name or pseudonym, and all other modes of correspondence or communication.    The Court deferred consideration of a defendant’s internet blog, which contained allegedly defamatory statements about the plaintiff’s expert witness, but characterized them as “the type of statements that should not and cannot be made without attracting legal action.  They certainly should never be made to a person’s employer, as they could be construed as not only defamatory but an interference with the target person’s economic and contractual relations.”  “[I]f these allegations were repeatedly called to the attention of [the expert witness’] employer, it would look like an attempt was being made to intimidate or actively discourage her from testifying at trial as an expert witness.”