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Tort - Defamation - Appeal. James Bay Resources Limited v. Mak Mera Nigeria Limited [SOR]
In James Bay Resources Limited v. Mak Mera Nigeria Limited (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed an appeal - here from orders that "Mak Mera to pay James Bay the amount of US$405,000, which she characterized as “advances”" and "damages for defamation in the amount of $200,000".
Here the court considers the SOR for defamation damages:[75] The standard of review of an award of damages for defamation is highly deferential: appellate courts should not interfere with judge-alone defamation awards except where the judge has made an error in law, applied a wrong principle, seriously misapprehended the evidence, or made an award that is “so inordinately high or low” as to make the award an entirely erroneous estimate of the damages: Barrick Gold Corporation v. Lopehandia (2004), 2004 CanLII 12938 (ON CA), 71 O.R. (3d) 416 (C.A.), at paras. 24-26.
[76] As this court instructed in Walker v. CFTO Ltd. (1987), 1987 CanLII 126 (ON CA), 59 O.R. (2d) 104 (C.A.), at p. 115, on appellate review: “The question to be addressed here is whether the amount awarded ... falls within the range of damages reasonably required to compensate the company for the reputational harm suffered by it and publicly to clear its good name.”
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