In December 2019, a Superior Court judge awarded damages for the
first time for a new
privacy tort ("Publicity which places the plaintiff in a
false light in the public eye") in Yenovkian v.
Gulian, 2019 ONSC 7279.
This matter arose from an acrimonious divorce. The judge,
Justice Kristjanson, found that the husband, Mr. Yenovkian, created
websites on which he posted, among other things, allegations of
child abuse against his wife, Ms. Gulian, and videos of their child
purporting to show the damage done by the alleged abuse. He also
accused his wife of other crimes including theft, kidnapping, and
fraud.
Justice Kristjanson considered whether the facts she found could
make out a claim for an invasion of privacy. In doing so, she
considered the Ontario Court of Appeal's seminal decision in
Jones v Tsige. In that decision, the court considered
whether there might be some previously unrecognized privacy torts,
specifically:
