Injurious Falsehood (Tort)

Sankreacha v. Cameron J. and Beach Sales Ltd., 2018 ONSC 7216 (CanLII)

[190] The plaintiff alleges that he was wrongfully accused of downloading KGB spyware onto Mr. Brennan’s computer, downloading credit card data, compromising the pin pad and stealing money from Canadian Tire employees’ and others’ bank accounts. He seeks damages for the tort of injurious falsehood.

[191] The tort of injurious falsehood is similar to the tort of defamation but protects a different interest. Defamation protects a person’s personal reputation while injurious falsehood protects an interest in one’s property, products or business. In order to recover for injurious falsehood, there must be a false statement made with malice and malice must be proven. Injurious falsehood consists in the publication of false and malicious statements concerning the plaintiff or his property calculated and intended to induce others not to deal with him; see Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. v Schad, 2016 ONSC 2297, at para. 415, citing Fleming, The Law of Torts, 9th ed., at pp. 778-779.