2012 QCCA 421, 2012 QCCA 421

Publications Canwest inc. c. Di Bona 2012 QCCA 421 COURT OF APPEAL CANADA PROVINCE OF QUEBEC REGISTRY OF MONTREAL No: 500-09-020967-105 ( 500-17-032587-068 ) MINUTES OF THE HEARING DATE: March 2, 2012 CORAM: THE HONOURABLE NICOLE DUVAL HESLER, C.J.Q. FRANÇOIS PELLETIER, J.A. PAUL VÉZINA, J.A. APPELLANT INCIDENTAL RESPONDENT ATTORNEY(

S) PUBLICATIONS CANWEST INC. Mtre Mark Bantey GOWLING, LAFLEUR, HENDERSON RESPONDENTS INCIDENTAL APPELLANTS ATTORNEY(

S) JOSÉ A. MARTINEZ DI BONA ANOBID CONSTRUCTION CORP. Mtre Alberto Martinez DESLAURIERS & CIE AVOCATS s.a.

On appeal from a judgment rendered on July 23, 2010. by the Honourable Madam Justice Claudette Picard of the Superior Court district of Montreal. NATURE OF THE APPEAL : Responsability Clerk: Marcelle Desmarais Courtroom: Antonio-Lamer HEARING Continuation of the hearing of February 29, 2012. Judgment – see page 3. Marcelle Desmarais Clerk BY THE COURT JUDGMENT

[ 1 ] Appellant objected to the filing of the expert's report on the basis that it constituted a legal opinion and that the expert had usurped the role of the trial judge in making findings of facts, in commenting on the evidence, and in reaching conclusions on the very issues that the trial judge was called upon to decide. [ 2 ] The qualifications of the expert on journalistic practices were impressive and, indeed, admitted by appellant. It must be emphasised that it is precisely on the issue of “les normes et pratiques journalistiques’’ that the judge admitted the evidence adduced by this witness.

In any event, a finder of fact is not bound by the opinion of an expert. Appellant was free to contradict such evidence as it saw fit and it cannot reproach the trial judge for having accepted opinion evidence which she found convincing and from which she drew her own conclusions.

Her approach accorded with applicable legal principles and she fully understood the role of the expert, as well as her own, as shown in the following paragraphs of the judgment under appeal: [35] CanWest s'est opposée à la production du rapport d'expertise du professeur Marc-François Bernier (Bernier) puisque ce dernier s'y est aussi prononcé sur les faits qui relèvent de l'appréciation du Tribunal. [36] Le Tribunal rejette l'objection.

L'objectif premier du rapport est d'éclairer le Tribunal sur les règles de l'art qui s'appliquent au journalisme, c'est-à-dire sur les normes déontologiques et les principes éthiques reconnus et revendiqués par la profession elle-même. [37] Le Tribunal a besoin de son éclairage pour comprendre les normes journalistiques. Bernier explique dans son rapport, notamment, la vérité, la rigueur et l'exactitude dans les médias, la distinction des faits par rapport aux opinions dans les messages journalistiques et l'équité journalistique.

Il est utile que le Tribunal comprenne ces normes pour pouvoir statuer. [38] C'est le Tribunal qui appliquera les règles de l'art en matière de journalisme aux faits en l'instance. [ 3 ] Appellant also argues that respondent Di Bona's privacy was not infringed by the

article of concern, which essentially reported on the dispute between him and a former customer with whom he had had an intimate relationship. However, a distinction has to be drawn between the public interest in the transparency of court cases and the undue exploitation, by the media, of the public's possibly prurient interest in the more titillating details of private stories that give rise to proceedings between protagonists.

The trial judge made no error in applying journalistic norms to the facts in evidence and in concluding that the journalist had negligently defamed the respondents and presented a mostly one-sided portrait. [ 4 ] Finally, appellant argues that the amounts awarded are exaggerated.

We find that it has failed to demonstrate that the trial judge improperly applied her discretion in this respect. [ 5 ] With respect to the incidental appeal, which concerns the claim for punitive damages, we detect no error in the trial judge's finding that such damages were not warranted in the circumstances at hand, no proof of a deliberate infringement of fundamental rights having been adduced. Quite to the contrary, the trial judge found that Lamey, the journalist, "a été peu lucide des intentions de Charrier qui voulait publiciser un litige"… (par. 59 of the judgment a quo ).

FOR THESE REASONS THE COURT: [ 6 ] DISMISSES the appeal, with costs. [ 7 ] DISMISSES the incidental appeal, with costs. NICOLE DUVAL HESLER, C.J.Q. FRANÇOIS PELLETIER, J.A. PAUL VÉZINA, J.A.