In Mainstream Canada v. Staniford, 2013 BCCA 341, the British Columbia Court of Appeal considered whether the defence of fair comment applied to defamatory material published on the internet and in a press release. The key issue was whether the defamatory material sufficiently referenced the “factual foundation” required to establish the defence.
The Court held that the defamatory material did not sufficiently reference the factual foundation required to establish the defence. As a result, the Court overturned the trial judge’s dismissal of the claim, granted a permanent injunction, and awarded general damages of $25,000 and punitive damages of $50,000.
The decision clarifies the circumstances in which the “factual foundation” requirement of the defence of fair comment will be met. It also provides guidance with respect to the application of the defence of fair comment to internet publications involving hyperlinked documents.
Background
The appellant, Mainstream Canada (“Mainstream”), was a producer of farmed salmon in British Columbia. The respondent, Don Staniford (“Mr. Staniford”), was an activist dedicated to the eradication of salmon farming. Mr. Staniford was also the author of a website under the name of The Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (“GAAIA”).
Starting in January 2011, Mr. Staniford posted various publications and images regarding salmon farming on the GAAIA website, and also sent a press release to the media containing similar content.
In general, the publications alleged that salmon farming was hazardous to human health and the environment. The publications also drew comparisons between salmon fish farmers and cigarette manufacturers.
Mainstream commenced an action seeking general and punitive damages on the basis that the publications were defamatory, as well as a permanent injunction restraining Mr. Staniford from publishing similar words and images in the future.
The trial judge dismissed the action. Although the trial judge held that the publications were defamatory, she held that the defence of fair comment applied.
Mainstream appealed the trial judge’s decision on the basis that the defence of fair comment did not apply.
Law
In a defamation action, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that a publication is defamatory. If the plaintiff succeeds, the onus shifts to the defendant to advance a defence, including the defence of fair comment, in order to escape liability.
The defendant must prove five elements to establish the defence of fair comment:
- The comment must be on a matter of public interest;
- The comment must be based on fact;
- The comment, though it can include inferences of fact, must be recognisable as comment;
- The comment must satisfy the following objective test: could any person honestly express that opinion on the proved facts?; and
- Even though the comment satisfies the objective test the defence can be defeated if the plaintiff proves that the defendant was actuated by express malice.
The second element of the defence of fair comment requires that a comment have a sufficient factual foundation. In particular, the comment must be an expression of opinion on a known set of facts, and the audience must be in a position to assess or evaluate the comment.
Decision
On appeal, Mr. Justice Tysoe, writing for a unanimous three-member panel, held that the trial judge erred in finding that the defence of fair comment applied to the defamatory material. In particular, the Court concluded that the defence did not apply because the second element of the defence was not met.
The Court began by observing that the “factual foundation” requirement could be met in any of three ways:
- The factual material can be expressly stated in the same publication as that in which the comment appears (i.e. by “setting it out”);
- The factual material commented on, while not set out in the material, can be referred to (i.e. by being identified “by a clear reference”); or
- The factual material can be “notorious”, as to be already understood by the audience.
The Court concluded that the factual foundation for certain comments in the publications “were neither notorious nor contained in the defamatory publications”.
As for whether there was a “clear reference” to the factual foundation, the Court observed that although the publications made general reference to certain scientific evidence that might have provided a factual foundation for the comments, the publications neither provided details of the evidence nor contained hyperlinks to the scientific papers in which the evidence was contained. At best, the references were indirect: the publications hyperlinked to articles that contained references to the scientific papers that might have provided a factual foundation for the comments.
Accordingly, the Court held that there was no clear reference in the defamatory publications as to where the factual foundation might be found. In addition, the Court observed that the trial judge, by concluding that it would take a “determined reader” to locate the factual foundation upon which the comments were based, had “implicitly acknowledged that there was not a clear reference to the facts that were neither notorious nor contained in the defamatory publications.”
The Court also considered whether the factual foundation could be sufficiently stated if it were contained somewhere on the website, contained in scientific papers hyperlinked on the website, or if the website set out the website addresses for the scientific papers.
On that point, the Court held that “[i]t is not sufficient for the defence of fair comment for facts upon which the comments were made to be contained on website pages that were not alleged to contain defamatory comments or in hyperlinked documents unless those other pages or hyperlinked documents were identified by a clear reference to contain such facts.”
The Court added that “[w]hether hyperlinks in a defamatory publication on a website to other documents containing facts upon which the defamatory comment was made is sufficient will depend on the circumstances of each case. If the defamatory publication advises the reader that a hyperlinked document contains facts upon which the defamatory comment is based and sets out where in the document they are contained, then there may well be a sufficient reference to those facts.”
In the case at bar, “the readers of the defamatory publications were not advised which of the multitudinous hyperlinked documents in the publications or elsewhere on the GAAIA website contained facts upon which Mr. Staniford’s comments were based.”
As a result, the Court concluded that “the facts upon which Mr. Staniford’s defamatory comments were based were not all notorious, contained in the defamatory publications or sufficiently referenced to be contained in other specified documents.” Accordingly, the defence did not apply.