KEEPING CURRENT
Internet Harassment Tort Recognized by
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
February 10, 2021
Founded in the 1920s, Gardiner
Roberts LLP has grown to become
a strategically placed mid-sized
business law firm with a diverse
client base which includes several
of Canada’s largest banks, public
companies including mining, high
tech and software companies,
real estate enterprises, lenders
and investors.
James R.G. Cook
Partner
416.865.6628
jcook@grllp.com
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In Theralase Technologies Inc. v Lanter,
2021 ONSC 943 (CanLII), Justice F.L.
Myers dismissed a motion to set aside
default judgment obtained against a
defendant who had posted defamatory
internet comments about the plaintiffs
using a pseudonym.
The plaintiffs were a pharmaceutical
company who shares were listed on the
TSX Venture Exchange and the US overthe-
counter market OTCQB, as well as
the company’s CEO and CFO. In 2019,
they commenced an action against a
number of unidentified “John Doe”
defendants for defamatory statements
published from 2014 through 2018 on
a website known as Stockhouse.com,
which was aimed at investors in Canada
and the US.
The Stockhouse.com site included a
function called a “Bullboard,” which
provided an internet chat forum on
which users could publish self-generated
content about a listed company. Users
of the website could also communicate
with other users privately using a service
akin to internal messaging in Facebook
Messenger or Twitter Direct Messages,
and using pseudonyms to avoid
disclosing their true identities.
The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants
published defamatory statements on the
“Bullboard” of the plaintiff’s company
using pseudonyms. The plaintiffs
recognized one of the posters as a former
employee but they could not identify any
of the others.
Prior to commencing the action, the
plaintiffs obtained a court order requiring
the owner of Stockhouse.com to disclose
the actual identities of the users whose
comments it published on its website.
The owner claimed that it suffered
technical problems that prevented it
from determining the posters’ true
identities. However, it was able to
provide email addresses for most of
them. The defendants were then served
with the statement of claim provided by
them to the website.
In 2020, the plaintiffs obtained default
judgment against the “John Doe” posters
who had not defended the claim. As
against one defendant who had used
the pseudonym “Truenorthstrong,”
GARDINER ROBERTS :: GRLLP.COM
By James R.G. Cook