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
“You think it’s not going to eventually happen here?”
The courts will have to overturn precedent. The one wildcard is that sites like FR that moderate their forums have been found to be accountable for content (since they actively control what’s published).
If this Canadian site was unmoderated, this ruling is garbage. It will absolutely have a stifling, chilling effect on Internet free speech.
Does anyone know if it was moderated?
Be false.
Be intended to harm.
And actually harm.
Did they prove their case, or has the court its head up its butt?
In Ontario, the law is different. Basically any negative comment is considered to be defamatory. Guilt is presumed, malice is presumed and damages are presumed.
The Ontario Civil Liberties Association recently wrote a paper about how bad this is, if you are interested in it:
Well, since here in the good ol' USA you can apparently sue someone in Aargentina for acts committed on Argentinian soil against Argentinian citizens some decades ago, I'd not be surprised at all to see Canada allow suits against operators of American websites for allegedly libeling canadian citizens. It's not near as much of a stretch, since the internet extends to Canada.
Just from curiosity, what were to happen if a Canadian-themed website housed in the United States and lacking the “.ca” URL were to exist?
IOW, if a Free Dominion were to be launched in the United States with a “.com” or “.org” URL and housed on American servers, what could a plaintiff do to stop Canadians from accessing it?
I suppose an ISP could block those domains but it would seem Canadians would be as unable to stop it as Americans are from stopping offshore gambling sites.
Thanks, Connie, for giving Americans a preview of where “hate speech” laws are leading us. Sorry you had to endure this but it is the leaders who rush the hill that take the most arrows.
All of you are in our prayers...
There is already a precedent for this. Conrad Black was allowed to sue an American website under Ontario defamation law for words they published in the US.
Because of the internet we, literally, are all in this together.
If someone ran a US board for Canadian content, it could exist and Canadians could access it.
But there would be nothing to stop Canadian plaintiffs from suing the owners under our gross Ontario defamation law.
That is why we are fighting so hard against this law. It does no good to have strong free speech protection in the US if someone else’s oppressive defamation laws can be applied to you.
Excerpted from wiki:
..."He's had an enormous impact," says Michael Geist, the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. "In a sense, he's got the mechanics of how we deal with online hate up and running. It's fair to say no one has been as effective or persistent." The result is a body of jurisprudence that leaves little doubt Canadian law applies to online hate speech that originates in this country. The decisions, says Geist, "have sent a clear warning to those who engage in hate speech that this is not a no-law land."
another excerpt:
Blogger and former magazine publisher Ezra Levant, who is being sued by Warman and others for libel, has argued that Warman's actions as a plaintiff before the Canadian Human Rights Commissions are tantamount to censorship in the name of human rights.[56] Levant also says the Warman's libel lawsuits generally are "nuisance suit[s]" that are part of Warman's "maximum disruption" policy.[57] Maclean's, which had been the subject of an unrelated human rights complaint concerning hate speech, has reported that "Richard Warman says he's fighting hate. Critics say free speech is the real victim." That article included commentary or allegations that ...[T]he slam-dunk quality to Warman's Section 13 cases are a cause for worry, symbolizing the drift of human rights commissions into the boggy territory of covert investigation and speech control.
So does that mean that in a Parliamentary campaign if a candidate says "and my opponent doesn't even floss regularly" the opponent can just declare himself to be deeply hurt (I mean,who wants a representative with halitosis?) and,voila!,a $100,000 judgment?
Thank you!
In a word: yes.
The plaintiff wouldn't even have to prove that the statement cost him any votes.
Current defamation law delivers almost unlimited latitude into the hands of a judge hearing a case. It's not really about what a speaker says but about who the speaker is. Had the roles of the plaintiff and defendants been reversed in this case the judge has the power to arrange a completely different outcome. The left is not safe from this either because it all depends on the politics of the day and who is in political favor and who is not.
Completely illegal. Typical. They troll for statements under freedom of speech and then they repress leaving only the other side with a nicely padded list of statements in a monologue vacuum. Parasites of free speech which then destroys its host aftef feasting on it.
The left would have no thesis if they did not provoke discussions and then plagiarized by default in deleting the other side. They bait and kill. Never go to a forum there unless you know what you are doing or what they will do in the end.
BUMP
Unless you're in show business or a hockey player.
Yes, yes he can.
No, it was not moderated. It would have been a full time job to moderate each and every single post.
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