Southam Inc. et al. v. Chelekis et al., 2000 BCCA 112

• Judge: Hollinrake, Huddart and Saunders, JJ.A.
• Court: Court of Appeal (British Columbia)
• Case Date: December 13, 1999
• Jurisdiction: British Columbia
• Citations: 2000 BCCA 112;(2000), 133 B.C.A.C. 253 (CA)

Southam Inc. v. Chelekis (2000), 133 B.C.A.C. 253 (CA);

    217 W.A.C. 253

MLB headnote and full text

Temp. Cite: [2000] B.C.A.C. TBEd. MR.026

Southam Inc. and David Baines (plaintiffs/respondents) v. George Chelekis, The Bull & Bear Financial Newspaper Inc., David J. Robinson, Peter Hunt and Canadian Corporate News Inc. (defendants) and Market News Publishing Inc. and Robert Shore (defendants/appellants)

(CA024610; 2000 BCCA 112)

Indexed As: Southam Inc. et al. v. Chelekis et al.

British Columbia Court of Appeal

Hollinrake, Huddart and Saunders, JJ.A.

February 14, 2000.

Summary:

The plaintiff Baines, a newspaper reporter and columnist for a newspaper owned by the plaintiff Southam Inc. sued, inter alia, the defendant Chelekis, a journalist who wrote articles and a press release published through an arrangement by the defendant Market News and owned by the defendant Shore. The plaintiffs' action was for damages for libel.

The British Columbia Supreme Court, in a decision reported at [1998] B.C.T.C. Uned. 483, allowed Baines' action and held, inter alia, that Market News and Shore were jointly and severally liable. These defendants appealed.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

Damage Awards - Topic 632

Torts - Injury to the person - Libel and slander - [See Libel and Slander - Topic 2041 ].

Libel and Slander - Topic 2041

Publication - Republication - General - A U.S. journalist published articles in an American business publication which implied that a Vancouver newspaper busi­ness reporter/columnist received illegal payments and conspired to aid short sellers in the stock market and drive down share prices - The journalist then paid $2 to Market News, a B.C. publication, to dis­tribute the articles to private investors and other news distributors - Market and its owner accepted the journalist's word that the articles were true, made no investiga­tion to verify their truth, were cavalier about their publication of this libel and disregarded the damage being done to the reporter - The British Columbia Court of Appeal affirmed that Market and its owner were jointly and severally liable for $250,000 compensatory damages - See paragraphs 14 to 27.

Torts - Topic 7162

Joint and concurrent tortfeasors - Joint tortfeasors - What constitutes - [See Libel and Slander - Topic 2041 ].

Cases Noticed:

Botiuk v. Bardyn et al., [1995] 3 S.C.R. 3; 186 N.R. 1; 85 O.A.C. 81, refd to. [para. 16].

Botiuk v. Toronto Free Press Publications Ltd. - see Botiuk v. Bardyn et al.

Brown v. Cole et al., [1999] 7 W.W.R. 703; 114 B.C.A.C. 73; 186 W.A.C. 73 (C.A.), refd to. [para. 18].

Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto and Manning, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 1130; 184 N.R. 1; 84 O.A.C. 1, refd to. [para. 25].

Counsel:

B. Baynham, Q.C., and L. Corbett, for the appellants;

B.T. Gibson, for the respondents.

This appeal was heard before Hollinrake, Huddart and Saunders, JJ.A., of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, at Vancouver, British Columbia, on December 13, 1999. The decision of the court was delivered on February 14, 2000, by Hollinrake, J.A.