Posted on 01/29/2014 7:14:41 AM PST by conniew
By Andrew Duffy, OTTAWA CITIZEN January 28, 2014
OTTAWA — The online political forum, Free Dominion, has shut down after a wholesale defeat in a libel case brought by Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman.
A jury concluded that Warman was maliciously defamed by four commentators on Free Dominion, a website that bills itself as “the voice of principled conservatism.”
Warman has been awarded more than $127,000 in general damages, aggravated damages, punitive damages and court costs because of 41 defamatory statements published on the conservative website in 2007.
Warman rose to prominence during the past decade by using the Canadian Human Rights Act to shut down the websites of people spreading hate speech; it made him the target of free speech advocates in the conservative blogosphere, and on websites such as Free Dominion.
In a recently released decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith granted Warman a permanent injunction that prohibits Free Dominion from ever repeating “in any manner whatsoever” any of the 41 defamations.
The website’s operators, Connie and Mark Fournier, of Kingston, this week shut down freedominion.ca, saying they could not control what comments other people posted.
“By leaving the forum open and allowing people to comment, we’d be opening ourselves to a contempt-of-court charge,” Connie Fournier said Tuesday.
“If someone repeated one of those comments, we would be in trouble — and could even go to jail.”
The Fourniers have operated the website as a “labour of love” for the past 13 years.
“It’s really sad to be at the point where we have to shut down the political forum,” she said. “But we’ve come to the point where it would be crazy for us to keep it open: it would be too much of a risk.”
They have vowed to appeal the defamation case and have launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise money for their legal costs. The campaign has so far raised $2,800 of its $25,000 goal.
The Warman case is among the first to address at trial what constitutes defamation in the caustic political blogosphere. It adds to case law that suggests the Internet does not shield anonymous posters from legal action if they wrongfully attack someone’s reputation.
On his website, Warman said the case offers lessons for anyone involved in an Internet blog or forum. Chief among them, he said, is the idea that “If you make a mistake, admit it, repair the harm, and move on.”
Connie Fournier, however, said that if the case stands on appeal it will impair the once vibrant Canadian blogosphere.
“I think this is a terrible thing for free speech on the Internet,” she said. “When people who are allowing comments on their blogs and forums look at humongous costs and damage rulings like this, at injunctions that could put them in jail, they’re not going to want to take the risk of opening their site.”
The jury found that the four defendants — Roger Smith, Jason Bertucci, Connie and Mark Fournier — had been “malicious, high-handed and oppressive” in their conduct. Justice Smith also found the defendants had acted unreasonably by refusing to accept Warman’s offer to settle the case for $5,000 each.
Warman had to fight in court to obtain the identifies of those anonymous posters who had left defamatory comments on Free Dominion. The case dragged on for six years, culminating in a three-week trial before a six-person jury.
The Fourniers have never apologized or issued a retraction about the statements found to be defamatory.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Warman fits my definition of A$$#0LE.
They have no right to GUNS in Canada, either.
Now a warning to all here in the U.S. Be careful what you wish for here. Beware of programs falling under the disguise of security. Remember it was GW Bush who had an U.S. attorney general who wanted to start and keep databases on all our online and other communications. Beware of so called regional unions or agreements made binding one nation to another.
In the United States the Constitution of the United States is the limitations of government and as well states our rights and freedoms. It should never be subject to or subordinate to any treaties, agreements, unions, or other entanglements surrendering Constitutional rightful protections & national sovereignty. Those wishing to subvert this no matter who they are or what party or reasoning they claim are TYRANTS! They are practicing Marxism.
>> Yet we are sickened today
No kidding. Thanks for the heads-up.
Just dang. Sorry to hear this. FD was a great site.
Good example.
If he was alive and you posted it on our website and he sued us in Ontario court, we'd be toast.
First of all, it would be considered defamatory right off the bat.
We would not be able to use the defence of "truth" because, in order to do that, we would need witnesses to come into the court and give first-hand testimony that they saw him molest a child or they were molested by him as a child and that they saw him participating in a "totalitarian death cult". They'd also have to define a "totalitarian death cult" and prove that Islam is one (with first-hand testimony).
If we were to make the argument that the above statement was fair comment, we would have to show that it was based on facts and that you honestly believed what you wrote.
However, since you didn't lay out all of the facts that you based those opinions on in the post(s) in which it appeared, we would not be allowed to speculate as to what facts you were relying on. We would also not be allowed to say whether or not it was your honest belief, because that would be "opinion evidence" and, therefore, not admissable. So, the fair comment defence would fail.
Even if we had court transcripts that clearly showed that the plaintiff had done those things, or reams of news articles, videos, or history books, none of that would be admissable because they are all considered "hearsay".
In short, if you are a forum administrator in Canada and someone posts a negative comment about someone on your site, you are completely liable and you have no defence.
If you appeared in court and said what facts you based that statement on and that it was your honest opinion, you might have a chance of being allowed the "fair comment" defence, but, in our case, they simply found over and over again that "no person could honestly hold that opinion".
Game over.
Thankfully, in America we are (so far, largely) Free to our opinions and to express them without threat of lawsuit.
Come on down! What with Global Cooling, you might find the political and actual climate more appealing!
Time for Conservatives with pockets (lawyers) to fight back and do the same thing to libberal sites.
Also, might I add that freedom tastes different to those that have fought for it, which is why so many elected "representatives" willingly infringe - freedom is meaningless to them as they never had to fight for it.
Send them to me, and I’ll post them for you!
Sorry to hear about this conniew. I’ve gone to FD when FR was unavailable for whatever reasons. It’s really sad what Canada has come to. We’re not as far behind as we’d like to think. Speech codes are all the rage in many parts of this once free Republic.
Time to relocate.
by IP address were you able to find out “who” did the postings about the “W” man? I wonder if “W” was responsible for any of it or knows whom did the posts or was in cahoots with whomever did those posts?
I am sorry. I am sorry that one Judge, one “W”, lawyers made your life miserable. Free speech is only for liberals apparently.
Canada has no Freedom of Speech eh?
He looks more like a Maoist than a Nazi.I'll wager that he had "The Little Red Book" committed to memory when he was 12.
would I be in trouble? Just asking.
Only if you didn't photoshop him into a more apropriate uniform...
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