Derrick Penner
The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a lower-court ruling that determined billionaire financier Frank Giustra has the right to sue social-media giant Twitter in this province.
© Provided by Vancouver Sun Businessman and philanthropist Frank Giustra in Vancouver.
Twitter appealed the Jan. 15 decision of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elliot Myers that B.C. courts had a “presumptive jurisdiction” to hear Giustra’s defamation claim against Twitter owing to his substantial connection to and reputation in the province.
Giustra filed suit against Twitter in April, 2019, claiming he had faced a targeted attack on the company’s platform by a group that sought to vilify him for political purposes starting around February, 2015, and which escalated during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Meyers did not weigh in on the merits of Giustra’s claims, but determined the executive had demonstrated damage to his reputation in Canada, for the purposes of determining jurisdiction.
Twitter maintained that California, where it is headquartered and Giustra also owns a home, was a more appropriate jurisdiction considering most of the tweets in the executive’s claim appear to have originated in the U.S.
In its appeal, the social-media giant argued that Meyers erred in principle by giving too much weight to the fact that Giustra faced a disadvantage in U.S. courts because his case would be unlikely to succeed under constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
The Court of Appeal, however, dismissed that argument, finding that “the judge was correct in concluding that Twitter had failed to rebut that presumption (of jurisdiction),” Justice Christopher Grauer wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that was unanimous in its decision.
“In these circumstances, I am not persuaded that the judge gave undue weight to the factor of juridical advantage arising from Twitter’s immunity in the United States, or otherwise erred in his analysis of this aspect of the forum non conveniens analysis,” Grauer wrote, using the Latin term that means “inconvenient forum”.
Twitter appealed the Jan. 15 decision of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elliot Myers that B.C. courts had a “presumptive jurisdiction” to hear Giustra’s defamation claim against Twitter owing to his substantial connection to and reputation in the province.
Giustra filed suit against Twitter in April, 2019, claiming he had faced a targeted attack on the company’s platform by a group that sought to vilify him for political purposes starting around February, 2015, and which escalated during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Meyers did not weigh in on the merits of Giustra’s claims, but determined the executive had demonstrated damage to his reputation in Canada, for the purposes of determining jurisdiction.
Twitter maintained that California, where it is headquartered and Giustra also owns a home, was a more appropriate jurisdiction considering most of the tweets in the executive’s claim appear to have originated in the U.S.
In its appeal, the social-media giant argued that Meyers erred in principle by giving too much weight to the fact that Giustra faced a disadvantage in U.S. courts because his case would be unlikely to succeed under constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
The Court of Appeal, however, dismissed that argument, finding that “the judge was correct in concluding that Twitter had failed to rebut that presumption (of jurisdiction),” Justice Christopher Grauer wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that was unanimous in its decision.
“In these circumstances, I am not persuaded that the judge gave undue weight to the factor of juridical advantage arising from Twitter’s immunity in the United States, or otherwise erred in his analysis of this aspect of the forum non conveniens analysis,” Grauer wrote, using the Latin term that means “inconvenient forum”.
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