2009 July 9

Rawdon (Municipalité de) c. Leblanc (Solo), 2009 QCCS 3151

The Quebec Superior Court granted an interlocutory injunction sought by the mayor, director general and Rawdon municipality to restrain the publication of defamatory words on a specified Internet website and prohibiting the defendants – as the role of administrators, hosts or moderators – from allowing the plaintiffs to be defamed on any Internet website. The court also ordered the defendants to deactivate and withdraw from the Internet within 12 hours a specific discussion group and to withdraw from the Internet every document or words containing the defamatory expression. [Prior court orders in favour of the plaintiffs included an Anton Pillar order which lead to the identification of anonymous posters.] In connection with a finding that the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction were not granted, the court stated that it was of the opinion that “use of the Internet as a means of dissemination of the defamation rendered practically impossible the correction of the negative impression left by the defamatory words.”