Defamation

Gaur v. Datta, 2015 ONCA 151:

[8]          The tort of defamation requires the plaintiff to prove three elements: (1) the defendant made a defamatory statement, in the sense that the impugned words would tend to lower the plaintiff's reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person; (2) the words in fact refer to the plaintiff; and (3) the words were communicated to at least one person other than the plaintiff: Guergis v. Novak, 2013 ONCA 449, 116 O.R. (3d) 280, at para. 39; Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640, at para. 28; see also Lysko, at para. 91.

[9]          In Lysko, at para. 90, this court noted that "publication by the defendant is an essential element of a defamation action and any person who participates in the publication of the defamatory expression in furtherance of a common design will be liable to the plaintiff". As Raymond E. Brown stated in The Law of Defamation in Canada, loose-leaf (2012-Rel. 3), 2nd ed. (Scarborough: Carswell, 1999), at pp. 7-30 – 7-31: 

The defamatory material may be published indirectly through the action of some intermediary for whose publication a defendant may be held to share responsibility. This may be because the defendant authorized, incited or encouraged another to publish it…A defendant may be responsible for the acts of others by encouraging, instructing or authorizing them to publish defamatory information, or providing them with information intending or knowing that it will be published. 

[10]       Pleadings in defamation cases are more important than in any other class of action, and require a concise statement of the material facts: Lysko, at para. 91.