2012 September 6

Lapierre c. Sormany, 2012 QCCS 4190

The Quebec Superior Court awarded the plaintiff, a former federal Cabinet Minister and co-founder of the Bloc Quebecois party, $22,000 moral damages for defamatory statements contained in a posting which appeared on a third party’s Facebook page. The defendant, a senior official with a major media organization, removed the posting after four days. The Court noted there was no evidence at trial that the posting had gone viral or that it had been republished in other social media.