(Montreal) After winning a high-profile human rights and free speech case in the Supreme Court of Canada last year, Mike Ward escaped a defamation suit brought by Jeremy Gabriel’s mother.
Posted 1:27 pm
A Quebec court judge has dismissed Sylvie Gabriel’s defamation suit against comedian Jeremy Gabriel for making a joke about a well – known disabled teenager who was a singer between 2010 and 2013.
His mother demanded $ 84,600 in damages from Mike Ward, arguing that his jokes about Jeremy Gabriel had caused him significant harm.
Judge Manon Goudrolt dismissed the case on May 30. She argued that one year had elapsed since the defamation suit was filed – taking into account the time the case had spent in other courts.
Judge Goudrolt, however, rejected M’s prosecution comedian’s argument.Me The abuse of the Gabriel process and the overuse of the legal system.
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Jeremy Gabriel
In a lengthy legal story between Gabriel’s family and Mike Ward’s, Judge Goudrolt’s decision is the latest step that has reached the Supreme Court.
In a very divided decision (five against four), Mr. Last October, the country’s highest court ruled that the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal had no jurisdiction to rule on a discrimination complaint filed by Gabriel. A defamation case.
Jeremy Gabrielle has Trecher Collins Syndrome, a congenital disease with deformities of the skull and face. According to the Supreme Court, the comments made by the comedian about Jeremy Gabriel in a show a few years ago did not meet the criteria by which applicants were discriminated against.
When Mike Ward raised Jeremy Gabriel in his performances, the young man was a famous singer who appeared with Celine Dion and Pope in the Vatican.
In 2016, the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ordered Mike Ward to pay $ 35,000 and $ 7,000 in moral and disciplinary compensation to Jeremy Gabrielle, both of whom were discriminated against. The appellate court upheld the verdict and agreed to pay the young man $ 35,000, but canceled the damages owed to his mother.
The case went to the Supreme Court against the protection of human dignity, in the form of artistic expression, dark satirical comedy. The country’s highest court has found that the singer and his mother chose the wrong forum – the human rights tribunal – to bring their lawsuit because it was not discriminatory, according to the charters.
Like his mother, Jeremy Gabriel also filed a defamation suit against Mike Ward in Superior Court; He claimed $ 288,000 in damages. Comedian’s lawyer Julius Gray said he would ask the court to dismiss the lawsuit at a June 29 hearing. M.E Gray argues that this is another abuse of the process.
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