What's Your Reputation Worth?

Guest post by Randall Walford, a B.C. lawyer whose practice specializes in resort law. This post discusses the importance of protecting your professional reputation.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

When I was a law student, one of my professors was three times my age. I recall he often spoke from his heart and gave sage advice - an activity quite out of character with the law school experience. One day he reflected on his fifty years as a lawyer and shared the insight that "If only people had good manners and common sense, they wouldn't create so much work for lawyers." Twenty years of experience has proven that to be one of the wisest lessons of my education.

And nowhere is that so true as in the area of defamation law. Often motivated by jealousy, small-mindedness, and other selfish objectives, defamatory remarks usually speak volumes about the defamer and nothing about their target.

Defamation is defined as an intentional false communication either published or spoken publicly, that injures another's reputation or good name, or diminishes the esteem, respect, goodwill, or confidence in which the person is held. It includes generating adverse, derogatory, or unpleasant feelings or opinions against someone or exposing them to ridicule or hatred.

Defamation is an actionable wrong, meaning it can be sued on by the party who is defamed. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the reputation of an individual is an extremely valuable asset. In Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto [1995], the defendants were a church and its lawyer. They made untrue statements about another lawyer who was a crown prosecutor. Their statements wrongfully implied that the Crown prosecutor was guilty of some professional misconduct. Their allegations were later found to be groundless. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld an Ontario Court of Appeal damage award of $1.6 million in favour of the prosecutor. It held that a lawyer's reputation is all he or she has to make a living with, and that no one can defame another without serious consequences.

The award in the case of Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto [1995] serves as a guide by which all of us should govern our conduct when tempted to make defamatory comments about another person. But don't worry, this doesn't mean you have to stop telling lawyer jokes!