Calgary lawyer faces defamation lawsuit after sharing client’s claim with CBC
Queens Bench master refused to summarily dismiss the claim against lawyer Michael Bates and his client Jacob Hardy
A Calgary lawyer is facing a defamation action after sharing details of his client’s lawsuit with the CBC and other news outlets.
According to a recent Court of Queen’s Bench ruling, Calgary lawyer Michael Bates filed a statement of claim on behalf of Jacob Hardy, who made allegations of conspiracy against six employees of the Calgary Police Service back in November 2016 over a perjury charge laid against him. The defendants included Hardy’s former wife Candace Rumancik, a civilian employee of the force, and her new husband Joel Rumancik, a police officer.
Bates then emailed Hardy’s claim to his contact at the CBC – Calgary crime reporter Meghan Grant – before drafting a press release with the statement of claim attached, and forwarding it to every major outlet in Canada.
That subsequently prompted the Rumanciks to sue both Hardy and Bates for defamation.
Grant’s CBC story ended up being just one in a string of reports by national and international outlets detailing Hardy’s $600,000 claim against the CPS employees, alleging that the perjury investigation was biased. In addition to the Rumanciks, the lawsuit named the officer who charged Hardy and city’s the police chief.
None of Hardy’s allegations have been proven in court. Indeed, Justice Patrick Sullivan’s recent decision – concerning a procedural application in the defamation action – says an internal CPS investigation found there was no basis for the conspiracy allegations in the original statement of claim, while the Rumanciks allege false statements in the legal document seemed designed to bolster the conspiracy allegations (these claims have also yet to be tested in court.)
According to Sullivan’s ruling, Bates and Hardy moved to have the Rumanciks’ claim dismissed summarily on the basis that the allegedly defamatory statements were subject to both absolute and qualified privilege.
But Master Andrew Robertson refused the application, suggesting any privilege that existed may have been lost, and expressing his unease with the idea of lawyers sharing legal claims with journalists:
“I am very concerned that sending a Statement of Claim off is becoming sort of regular practice because I think it is a very dangerous practice,” wrote Master Robertson, according to excerpts quoted in Justice Sullivan’s ruling. “There is no evidence before me that this particular dispute was the subject of a discussion in the public that made it appropriate for a party to have a social or moral legal duty to discuss in the public. This was [simply] taking a private lawsuit public to the largest broadcaster in the country. It seems to me that if that isn’t disclosing it to the world, I don’t [know] what is.”
Bates has denied inciting or convincing Grant to publish her story, and said in his statement of defence that he believed the facts alleged in Hardy’s claim were true or capable of being proven based on the information available to him at the time of drafting – although he also offered corrections or clarifications to some statements based on information learned since then, Justice Sullivan’s ruling says.
Bates’ defence says that all of his actions were done in his role as counsel to Hardy, and that he believed it was in his client’s best interests “for the local media to be made aware of his claims so that they could decide whether to make those claims known to the public based on their professional judgment.”
Justice Sullivan’s recent decision in the matter concerned refusals and objections made by Bates and Hardy under questioning by counsel for the plaintiffs, which the Rumanciks claimed prevented meaningful discovery.
The judge ordered the defendants to answer almost all of the questions and undertakings identified by the plaintiffs, noting that the pleadings of both parties raised questions with respect to publication, responsible communication in the public interest, qualified privilege and malice.
“The Defendants, Bates and Hardy, protest at great length that their reasons to refusing to answer questions and to deliver undertakings is that it violates the principle of solicitor-client privilege,” Justice Sullivan added. “In answer to that complaint, I find that on all of the alleged facts, the proven and admitted facts that privilege of this nature has been waived and further that by the very nature of the pleadings and the relationship of the parties, they have impliedly waived solicitor-client privilege. So that the privilege does not apply to protect or shelter the Defendants from answering the questions enumerated in this case.”
Bates’ lawyer Eugene Bodnar provided a statement on the ruling to Court Report Canada:
“Mr. Bates welcomes public scrutiny of the court process and believes strongly in the open court principle and the public’s right to know about these types of disputes. He is defending the allegations against him and will be appealing this decision,” said Bodnar, a a partner at Calgary firm Scott Venturo Rudakoff LLP.
“As per a previous decision in this action, ‘there is a very strong argument that there was a qualified privilege in place.’ Mr. Bates trusts that when all of the evidence and argument is presented, the court process will come to a just result,” he added.
Matti Lemmens, a partner in the Calgary office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, acted for the Rumanciks on the refusals application:
“My clients are pleased with the result, as the answers to the questions are important to the core issues in the Action,” she said in a statement.
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