A high school student has been ordered to pay damages to his teacher after hanging out with three friends in t-shirts displaying his picture and a sentence suggesting he was engaging in sexual activity with another teacher.
Such a conviction against a student would be a first in Quebec, which will set a precedent, believes the teacher’s lawyer, Mr.e Charles-Éric Désîlets, in interview with The duty.
One Friday night in 2019, the four 16-year-old friends decide to get t-shirts made at the mall.
Secondary 5 young people exchange ideas on what could be “funny”, writes judge Julie Messier of the Court of Quebec, and stop their choice on the photo of one of their teachers (X) with the mention “Y sucks X”, Y being the name of another teacher at school.
They walk around the mall wearing their new acquisitions, and then to the cinema.
It is there that they are seen by an employee, who is a former student of X. She communicates with him, while he is spending a quiet evening with his spouse. He is upset.
At the beginning of the week, two of the four students will bring the t-shirt to school, and one will even wear it while in class with Professor Y.
The management will then get involved, meet the two students and discover the names of the other two. They will all be temporarily suspended.
Dissatisfied, the teacher sends a letter of formal notice to the four students. One settles immediately with payment of a sum of money, the other two will do so later, once the defamation action is brought.
The action therefore continues until the trial against only one of the students and against his parents, who can be held responsible for the actions of their children. Initially for $12,000, the lawsuit was later reduced to $4,000, consisting of $2,000 in damages for damage to reputation, trouble and inconvenience and $2,000 in punitive damages.
The teacher says he was very affected: “the message with a sexual connotation worried him greatly as it could harm his teaching career. He does not understand why he is targeted, why this personal attack, he loses hope in humanity, he is sad. He dreads the next few days, ”is it related in the judgment.
Teachers are used to tolerating a lot of things in the classroom, Ms.e Desilets. “Except that there, it was beyond what he could endure, because his reputation was attacked outside of school, in a public place. And since he teaches minors, he does not want to be associated with a sexual act, added the lawyer.
Letter of apology
In defense, the student indicated that the intention of the group was to make a joke, and that there was nothing “personal” against the teacher. “He acknowledges that their gesture was mean and demeaning, even though that was never the intention. »
Before the defamation suit was brought, the youngster, with the help of his father, drafted a letter of apology to the teacher. Also on the advice of this one, he went to the store to ensure that all traces of the printing of the t-shirt were erased. This mistake changed his life, he testified. When he returned to school following the suspension, he felt rejected by the entire faculty. His grades were affected and this affected his career at CEGEP, which he left. He suffered from depression and, to this day, he is followed in child psychiatry.
The judge decides quickly: there has been defamation, noting that she considers the whole thing to be “degrading”. “This message affects the respect and trust that the ordinary citizen can have towards a teacher who appears to be “sucked” by another. The reader cannot help but wonder about good conduct, licentiousness, the values of X, ”wrote the magistrate in her decision.
“A reasonable, wise, diligent person, mindful of the rights of others, would not have created and worn such a sweater.”
It condemns the young person to pay 1000 dollars in moral damages, an amount below what was claimed. The judge did not award punitive damages. The teenager has expressed remorse and apologies on more than one occasion, he gained nothing from this act and has no history of delinquent behavior. “She took into account his limited means” considering that he is starting out in life and the fact that the teacher had settled out of court with the three other students, explained Ms.e Desilets.
The parents are spared: “We had no proof that they had committed a fault” in the education of their teenager, indicates the lawyer.
The lawyer for the student and his parents, Ms.e Jessica Nadon, did not want to comment on the judgment.