What are the elements required to establish a defamation claim?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Seikhon v Dhillon, 2017 BCSC 2525 (CanLII):

The elements required to establish a claim in defamation were summarized in Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, at para. 28: A plaintiff in a defamation action is required to prove three things to obtain judgment and an award of damages: (1) that the impugned words were defamatory, in the sense that they would tend to lower the plaintiff's reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person; (2) that the words in fact referred to the plaintiff; and (3) that the words were published, meaning that they were communicated to at least one person other than the plaintiff.

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