2020 February 3

Labourer’s International Union of North America, Local 183 v. Castellano,  2020 ONCA 71

The Ontario Court of Appeal allowed an appeal in part from the judgment of the Ontario Superior Court (2019 ONSC 506) by amending a permanent injunction which required the defendant to “take all necessary steps to remove all audio and video recordings, and written statements, of or about any and all of the plaintiffs, from the internet or any other location in which they are accessible to the public, and to destroy all such audio and video recordings.”    The Court of Appeal held that although a permanent injunction prohibiting the defendant from posting defamatory comments was justified by the evidence, there was no evidence that the defendant was incapable of discerning between defamatory comments and legitimate criticism, such that the lower court’s blanket injunction was required.  The Court of Appeal also set aside the portion of the lower court’s order that permanently restricted the defendant’s attendance near the plaintiffs and their families, and which prohibited any communications directly with the plaintiffs.  “Restrictions on a person’s communications and expressions of opinion are extraordinary; court-ordered restraints on a person’s physical freedom imposed in a civil dispute, outside certain statutorily prescribed circumstances, should be even more exceptional.  The reasons for the latter caution are evident:  they limit a person’s freedom and breaches of such ordered limitations could result in penal sanctions, including imprisonment.”