Dedication to the Honourable Dennis Lane QC

• Author: David A. Potts; Erin Stoik
• Pages: 27-28

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Dedication to the Honourable Dennis Lane QC

The Honourable DennisLane QC (Justice of the Ontario Superior Court

of Justice, 1989–2007), who regrettably passed awayin June 2020, playeda

big role in my careeras a defamation lawyer. I want to pay this belated but

heartfelt tributeto his kindness, generosity, and wisdom bydedicatingthis

text to him.

It began nearly forty years ago while he was a busy Queen’s Counsel at

Osler’s and I was a fourth year lawyer working as a junior to Julian PorterQC.

I was writing a libel text with Julian, and I contacted Dennis to discuss some

aspects of libel law with him. More precisely, section 22 of the Libel and Slan-

der Act and its impact on the common law as it applied to the defence of

justif‌ication relating to multiple stings. As you can imagine, this is a topic

of riveting contemporary interest. He spent a full day with me, discussing,

dissecting, and unravelling this issue. He was thoughtful and insightful, but

not patronizing to me in the slightest even though he knew more libel law

in his baby f‌inger than I knew at all.

His advice continued as he urged me to join the Defamation Law section

of the International Bar Association. I did so and became a Sherpa, aka Vice

President, organizing many conferences and meetings of some of the top

defamation lawyers in the world.

He became a judge of the Superior Court of Justice. He seemed to make

the transition seamlessly from leading counsel to excellent judge. He heard

a wide range of civil, criminal, family, and public law cases.

He wrote several important decisions in defamation law:

• Schreiber v Lavoie (2002),59 OR (3d) 130, 2002 CanLII 49430 (SC)

• Hodgson v Canadian Newspapers Co (1998), 39 OR (3d) 235 (Gen Div)

• Venneri v Bascom (1996),28 OR (3d) 281, 1996 CanLII 7972 (SC)

• Magnotta Winery Ltd v Ziraldo (1995), 25 OR (3d) 575,1995 CanLII 7122 (SC)