2018 June 21

Sunshine Village Corp. v Chevalier, 2018 ABQB 484

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench dismissed a defence application for summary dismissal of two lawsuits against a husband and wife over negative content on the Internet.  The facts before the Court indicated that the husband was the primary actor in the impugned internet postings and other actions, but the Court noted the plaintiffs had provided evidence that the defendant wife was involved in Facebook postings.  The Court concluded that it need to hear viva voce testimony and make an assessment of credibility in order to arrive at a fair and just determination of the issues. With respect to the defamation claims, the court held that assertions on the husband’s Facebook profile that the plaintiffs think they can endanger the public and references to the individual plaintiffs “Daddy’s little boy” and a “loser of the highest calibre” are defamatory.  “The vitriolic nature of many of the reactions [to the posted comments] quoted by the [plaintiffs] leads me to question whether they can be said to have come from reasonable and fair-minded people.  Nevertheless, they manifest damage to the [plaintiffs’] public reputations.”