An Ontario Divisional Court ruling that lays out a new test for a disclosure request in an online defamation case has created a "consistent road map" to guide litigators in future court actions, says a lawyer involved in the matter.
Wendy Matheson, who represented the Canadian Civil Liberties Association as an intervener in the appeal says Warman v. Fournier makes clear that disclosure in such cases isn't automatic.
"It means there's now a homogenous approach to obtaining disclosure in civil litigation," she says. "This court has rounded out the circumstances that may arise in a manner that means a consistent approach will be taken by the court when these requests are made."
The ruling comes out of a libel case involving Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer and anti-hate speech advocate who claims comments posted by a group of John Does in an Internet chat room on freedominion.ca defamed him.
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