Disgruntled bride must pay for defaming wedding photographer
Judge orders payment of $115,000 for series of online attacks
VANCOUVER (CP) — A B.C. bride has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 to a wedding photographer for unleashing an online torrent of defamatory comments that eventually destroyed the business.
The B.C. Supreme Court judgement says the attack on the integrity, ethics and reputation of Amara Wedding and its owner, Kitty Chan, was carried out by bride Emily Liao “with all her might.”
In his ruling released Feb. 22, Justice Gordon Weatherill says Liao’s “mission was to expose what she wrongly perceived as a corrupt business. He says Liao used the internet so her views would be widely read and cause “as much damage as possible” to Chan’s reputation and business.
“That goal was successful,” Weatherill says in the written ruling released online.
“The case is an example of the dangers of using the internet to publish information without proper regard for its accuracy,” he said.
The decision says Liao hired Chan to photograph her July 4, 2015, wedding and provide services valued just over $6,000, but days before the nuptials, Liao disapproved of the pre-wedding photos and stopped payment.
Chan’s staff completed the contract and withheld the photos and videos pending full payment, prompting Liao to begin a small claims action that ended in 2016 in favour of the photographer.
Before the small claims decision, Weatherill says Liao maintained an “unrelenting,” nearly year-long assault using social media sites to accuse Chan and her business of everything from “lying to consumers,” to “extortion” and “fraud.” Weatherill says Liao failed to prove the statements were true.