2013 March 6

St. Lewis v. Rancourt, 2013 ONSC 1350

The Ontario Superior Court, on application by the plaintiff, made orders requiring the defendant to provide certain information sought by the plaintiff on the pre-trial examination of discovery of the plaintiff in this libel action over allegedly defamatory blogs including, inter alia: 1) the true facts relied on by the defendant to support his defence of fair comment; 2) the address or location for the servers that host his website on Blogspot.com; 3) why the defendant is posting messages about this defamation action on Facebook; 4) a list of all the defendant’s Facebook friends who would have had access to messages he posted about the plaintiff or this defamation action on Facebook; 5) copies of all messages the defendant posted to his Facebook page about the plaintiff or this libel action; 6) a list of the defendant’s 79 Twitter followers (if not already provided); and 7) copies of all articles the defendant has written on-line on the subject of racism in Canada. The Court accepted submissions by the plaintiff that this information was relevant to the plaintiff’s claim for aggravated damages and to various defences pleaded by the defendant including fair comment, responsible communication, and the alleged expiry of limitation periods in sections 5 and 6 of the Ontario Libel and Slander Act.