COURT FILE NO.: CV-21-88228

DATE: 2022/09/20

ONTARIO

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

BETWEEN:

Esther Post

Plaintiff

– and –

Chelsea Hillier

Defendant

Andrea Baldy, Counsel for the Plaintiff

Defendant, Self-Represented

HEARD: August 26, 2022; Oral decision: given in court on September 16, 2022

REASONS FOR DECISION ON CONTEMPT MOTION

Somji J.

Overview

[1] The Plaintiff Esther Post brings a motion for civil contempt against the Defendant Chelsea Hillier for failure to comply with the decision and Order of the Honourable Justice Gomery dated June 24, 2022 (“Order”): Post v Hillier, 2022 ONSC 3793.

[2] On June 24, 2022, Justice Gomery issued a default judgment against Ms. Hillier for posting defamatory remarks against the Plaintiff on social media and Twitter and issued a permanent injunction ordering Ms. Hillier to remove any content about Ms. Post from her social media accounts, to refrain permanently from communicating any further false or disparaging statements about Ms. Post, and to post a retraction that her past statements against Ms. Post were false. In addition, Justice Gomery ordered Ms. Hillier to pay to Ms. Post $84,000 in damages and $12,483 for litigation costs.

[3] Ms. Post alleges that not only did Ms. Hillier fail to comply with the Order, but she also doubled-down and posted further defamatory comments about her on June 24, 2022, the same day the decision was released. According to Ms. Post, Ms. Hillier posted 10 defamatory tweets about her on June 24, 2022, and made a further derogatory comment on June 26, 2022.

[4] Plaintiff’s counsel put Ms. Hillier on notice that she had knowingly breached the Order and should she not comply, a contempt motion would be brought against her. The breaches continued and consequently, a motion for contempt was filed against Ms. Hillier. Plaintiff’s counsel points out that as of the motion hearing date, five tweets published on June 24, 2022, remained on Ms. Hillier’s Twitter account and no retraction has been posted on that account. The retraction that was finally posted was on a new Twitter account and fell short of the required wording.

[5] Ms. Hillier does not deny that initially some of her conduct was in breach of Justice Gomery’s Order, but claims she has since taken steps to comply with it. She indicates that she has not been able to fully comply with the Order because she has lost access to her original Twitter account as a result of which she was not able to take down all the posts on that account.

[6] The procedure for a contempt hearing is in the discretion of the judge: Ironside v Roskam, 2018 ONSC 247 at para 49.

[7] As a general rule, contempt requires a two-part hearing: Carey v Laiken, 2015 SCC 17 at para 18. At the first stage, the court must determine if Ms. Hillier was in contempt of the Order. If a finding of contempt is made, the matter proceeds to a second stage hearing to determine the appropriate penalty. In this case, I indicated to the parties that there would be a bifurcated hearing. This decision addresses stage 1.

[8] The issue to be decided is whether Ms. Hillier was in contempt of Justice Gomery’s Order.

Facts and Procedural History

[9] Ms. Hillier commenced defamatory postings on social media and Twitter in November 2021 about the Plaintiff, an English instructor at Carleton University. As stated by Justice Gomery, these posts are highly defamatory and would have the affect of seriously damaging Ms. Post’s reputation. As Justice Gomery concluded at paragraph 18 of her judgment:

[…] the words used by Ms. Hillier are obviously defamatory. It is hard to conceive of a more damaging accusation, for a teacher, than an allegation that she is a sexual predator who drugs her students. If believed, Ms. Hillier’s statements would seriously damage Ms. Post’s reputation in the eyes of her employer, her students, and the world at large. Had Ms. Post done what Ms. Hillier said she had, she could have been criminally charged and she would have lost her job.

[10] As a result of these postings, the Plaintiff sent Ms. Hillier a Notice of Lib