Appeals court dismisses $1.7-M damages in CBC Manitoba defamation case

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2023 (695 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CBC Manitoba has successfully appealed a court ruling that awarded nearly $1.7 million to an investment adviser who the public broadcaster and a former reporter defamed in news stories more than a decade ago.

A trio of justices sitting on the Manitoba Court of Appeal issued their 60-page decision Tuesday, dismissing the damages the Court of King’s Bench had ruled the public broadcaster owed the adviser in 2021.

The June 2012 news reports focused on the allegations of William Worthington, a former client who claimed he commuted his $675,000 Canadian Pacific Railway pension on Kenneth Wayne Muzik’s advice, converting it to an investment plan Muzik devised in 2006, only to see it lose half its value.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Herbert Rempel ruled in 2021 the CBC television and web stories about Muzik had negatively affected his life and ability to earn a living.

Rempel had dismissed the broadcaster’s attempts to defend itself, deciding the stories were about a private dispute made to look like a public interest matter.

In the Tuesday decision, the appeal court judges — Justices Marc Monnin, Jennifer Pfuetzner and Janice leMaistre — found although the CBC had defamed Muzik in the news reports, Rempel failed to appreciate the public interest element of the stories, as the reports dealt with investor risk and financial planning regulations.

That allowed the broadcaster to escape liability because its former reporter, Gosia Sawicka, attempted to verify the facts in the story, the ruling says.

The broadcaster argued in its appeal the “sting” — or substance — of the defamatory statements was true and the stories were matters of public interest, so could be defended under the principle of responsible communication.

That defence allows publishers to escape liability if proven in court it tried to verify the facts at hand and that what was published was in the public interest.

The appeal judges also found the public broadcaster had done due diligence to investigate Worthington’s claims, with multiple attempts to seek Muzik’s comment and get hold of the entirety of an audio recording of a meeting between the adviser, Worthington and his wife. They claimed the entire recording had been lost.

CBC had relied on parts of that recording in its 2012 stories. Rempel, in his prior decision, thought the disclosure of the entire tape would have been damaging to the Worthingtons’ claims Muzik had deceived them.

The appeal judges also found the trial judge made an error in awarding damages for affecting Muzik’s ability to earn income, because he minimized complaints against Muzik that concerned regulatory authorities.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca