The plaintiffs, owners of a shoe restoration business, brought a motion for an interim injunction to compel the defendant, a former employee, to remove social media posts alleging that the plaintiffs were racist and had terminated her for supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
The court applied the stringent test for injunctive relief in defamation actions, which requires the moving party to show that the words are clearly defamatory and that any defences of justification or fair comment will inevitably fail.
The court found that, based on the evidence presented, it would not be perverse for a trier of fact to find that the defences of justification or fair comment had been made out.
The motion for an interim injunction was dismissed.
