What is the burden on a plaintiff in a defamation action?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Austin v. Lynch, 2016 BCSC 1344 (CanLII):
The burden on a plaintiff in a defamation action is “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” (Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61 at para. 28).
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