Technicality might give Staniford another day in court
A defamation case involving a local salmon farming company and an anti-fish-farming campaigner could be heading back to court, reports the Westcoaster; On Feb. 13, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ordered a new trial between the Creative Salmon Farming Company Ltd. and Don Staniford. The case focused on two press releases written by Staniford, then an employee of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, in June 2005. On Jan. 15, 2007, Staniford was ordered to pay Creative Salmon $10,000 in damages and $5,000 in aggravated damages for defamatory statements. He was also ordered to pay $70,000 in legal fees. On appeal, however, Justice David Franklin Tysoe found the original trial judge was retroactively placed in error following a recent evolution of the law. He found the original trial judge required Staniford to satisfy what’s known as a “subjective honest belief” requirement as part of his fair-comment defence. A “subjective honest belief” refers to a comment a fair-minded person would honestly make on proven facts. But the “subjective honest belief” requirement is no longer part of the test for a fair-comment defence. Tysoe also ruled the original trial judge erred by stating the objective test was a “fair minded” person – not any person.
Creative Salmon told the paper they have not made a decision on how they will proceed.
