In what circumstances will a judge award damages of more than £200,000 to a plaintiff in a defamation action brought by a defendant who used justification and qualified privilege?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from John v. Kim, 2007 BCSC 1224 (CanLII):

In Fast v. Cowling, supra, Harvey J. found that the damages were aggravated by the circumstances because the pleas of justification and qualified privilege failed, the defendant was motivated by actual malice, the words were published under the “cloak of anonymity”, and during the discovery procedure the defendant was attributing motives on the part of the plaintiff which he later admitted at trial were untrue. In these regards, I adopt the statement made in Rantzen v. Mirror Group Newspapers (1986) Ltd., [1994] Q.B. 670 (C.A.) as being appropriate in this case: … If one looks at the matter not from the point of view of the state of mind of the defendant but for the purpose of assessing the injury to the plaintiff’s feelings, it is easy to see that a contest which involves justification or fair comment may increase the injury and add greatly to the anxiety caused by the proceedings which the plaintiff has had to bring to clear his name. (at p. 684)

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