Rancourt loses Ontario appeal in defamation case

The decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario was released on July 8, 2015, and is posted on CanLII here:

St. Lewis v. Rancourt, 2015 ONCA 513 (CanLII), <http://canlii.ca/t/gjxxd>


The Court of Appeal's rendition can be compared with the appeal factums of the two parties:

• Rancourt's (Appellant's) factum: LINK

• St. Lewis's (Respondent's) factum: LINK

• And with the Appellant's court-filed Notice of Constitutional Question: LINK

The summary of Rancourt's factum, on its page-1, is:

In this defamation trial, among other errors, the judge circumvented the jury by saying that the defendant (a blogger) had “no defence”. The judge said: “The defendant here has not introduced any evidence establishing a defence. Therefore, there is no defence for you to consider.” In fact, the defendant had explained his defences to the jury on the first day of trial and more than sufficient evidence to establish his defences was entered by the plaintiff while the defendant was present.

The media reports are based on a reading of the Court of Appeal's decision:

Ex-U of O prof loses defamation appeal

Chris Cobb, Ottawa Citizen

Published on: July 8, 2015 | Last Updated: July 8, 2015 5:53 PM EDT 

Libellous academic loses appeal

By Tony Spears, Ottawa Sun

First posted: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 02:21 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 02:28 PM EDT 

Another report was posted at this URL:

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/legalfeeds/2783/appeal-court-upholds-defamation-finding-in-law-prof-case.html