2015 February 5

Weaver v. National Post, 2015 BCSC 165

The British Columbia Supreme Court held that the defendant newspaper was not liable for defamatory postings in the reader comment area on the newspaper’s website where the newspaper removed the reader posts after receiving the plaintiff’s complaint. The Court reviewed English authorities including Godfrey v Demon Internet Ltd., [1999] EWHC 244 (QB), Bunt v Tilley, [2006] EWHC 407 (QB), Metropolitan International Schools Ltd. v Designtecnica Corp., [2009] EWHC 1765 (QB), and Tamiz v Google Inc. [2013] EWCA Civ 68, and held that “some awareness of the nature of the reader posts is necessary to meet the test of publication.” “Until awareness occurs, whether by internal review or specific complaints that are brought to the attention of the National Post or its columnists, the National Post can be considered to be in a passive instrumental role in the dissemination of the reader postings. It has taken no deliberate action amounting to approval or adoption of the contents of the reader posts. Once the offensive comments were brought to the attention of the defendants, however, if immediate action is not taken to deal with these comments, the defendants would be considered publishers as at that date.” The Court did make a damage award in respect of the articles published by the newspaper defendants.