2017 January 31

Shanthakumar v. Ming Pao Newspapers (Canada) Ltd., 2017 ONSC 5553

The Ontario Superior Court struck out a claim in a defamation action brought against the defendant newspaper over an online article, based on an RCMP news release, which had been left on the newspaper’s website for three months after the Crown withdrew the charges because of insufficient evidence.  The plaintiff’s statement of claim did not specify the words alleged to be defamatory or say whether they were published in the Chinese language version of the article, or in the Google translated version.  The claim did allege that the defendant newspaper’s website offered a link to Google Translator. The statement of claim did not set out the foreign words with the English translation, as the common law requires for defamation pleadings.  The Court noted that it was not provided with any case precedents regarding liability for defamation based on the continued publication of the fact of a criminal charge after the charge has been withdrawn.  The Court agreed with the defence submission  that the impugned newspaper article did not say what the plaintiff claimed.  Even the Google Translate version of the article demonstrated that the claim had no reasonable prospect of success.  In the circumstances the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action, demonstrated an absence of material facts, and was frivolous and vexatious.