CSL acted for the Law Society of British Columbia and defeated an application to strike a Response to Civil Claim in a defamation action. A copy of the decision can be found here.
Background
The plaintiff alleged the Law Society defamed him through a September 2024 press release responding to a resolution he had co-submitted that proposed changes to the Law Society's mandatory Indigenous Intercultural Course materials. After the Law Society filed its Response, the plaintiff applied to strike it in its entirety, arguing it disclosed no reasonable defence, was scandalous and vexatious, amounted to an abuse of process, and that the Law Society had failed to properly respond to a notice to admit and document discovery obligations.
An Unusually Complex Pleadings Motion
Applications under Rule 9-5(1) are usually resolved without a lengthy hearing. This application was anything but routine given its length. The scope of argument required the Court to grapple with the historical and evidentiary background underlying the Law Society's course materials, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's findings, statements from the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, forensic archaeological evidence, and the Court of Appeal's decision in R. v. Dick.
Application Dismissed
Justice Chan dismissed the plaintiff’s application to strike. The Court held that the Law Society's pleaded defences of fair comment, qualified privilege and responsible communication were each supported by material facts and were not so plainly deficient as to disclose no reasonable defence. The Court also rejected the plaintiff's arguments that the Response was vexatious, embarrassing or an abuse of process, finding that the extensive background material pleaded by the Law Society was properly included to provide necessary context for its defences.
The decision confirms that a defendant facing a defamation claim can plead substantial contextual and historical background in support of defences like fair comment and responsible communication, even where that background is contested, without running afoul of Rule 9-5. It also illustrates that the "plain and obvious" threshold on a strike application remains a high bar for a plaintiff to meet even in a highly public and contentious dispute and that novel or difficult factual terrain is properly left for determination at trial rather than resolved on the pleadings.
