What is the burden of a defamation action?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Level One Construction Ltd. v Burnham, 2018 BCSC 1354 (CanLII):

The plaintiff has the burden in a defamation action to establish the following: (i) 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; (ii) they refer to the plaintiff, and; (iii) they were published, meaning that they were communicated to at least one person: Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61 at para. 28.

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