The Quebec Court of Appeal has rejected the appeal of Jérémy Gabriel’s mother: her action against comedian Mike Ward for defamation and harassment will therefore not be able to move forward.
Sylvie Gabriel was trying to obtain financial compensation for what she says she suffered after the comedian’s taunts about her son and herself during her show entitled Mike Ward exposes himself, presented on stage between 2010 and 2013.
By its decision rendered Monday, the Court of Appeal confirmed the previous judgment: Mme Gabriel filed his appeal too late. The law provides that a person who believes they have suffered damage has a maximum period — which varies depending on the type of case — to file a lawsuit. She exceeded it, the Court determined.
The case has been before the courts for more than 10 years and has seen many twists and turns.
It all started in 2012, when Mme Gabriel filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights (the Commission) after hearing comments from Mike Ward that she considered denigrating about her son, who became known as singer. Jérémy Gabriel suffers from Treacher-Collins syndrome, a congenital disease characterized by head malformations and severe deafness. For meme Gabriel, these words constituted discrimination against his son, then a teenager, because of his disability. The comedian added another layer by maintaining that the mother had used her son’s money to buy luxury goods, we can read in the judgment communicated on Monday. The Commission, considering the complaint founded, filed an action against Mike Ward on behalf of Jérémy Gabriel and his parents before the Human Rights Tribunal of Quebec, claiming the sum of $80,000.
The Gabriel family initially won their case: in 2016, the Human Rights Tribunal ordered Mike Ward to pay $35,000 to Jérémy and $7,000 to his mother. It was determined that the comedian had violated the young man’s right to equality by making discriminatory comments based on his disability, which violated his dignity. The case progressed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which in 2021 rejected the action taken for discrimination and canceled the award of the sums of money.
Take two
Shortly after, in January 2022, Sylvie Gabriel filed another lawsuit, taking a different angle of approach: this time she alleged that there had been defamation, harassment and intimidation — it was therefore not a matter of discrimination action as the first recourse.
The comedian requested the dismissal of this second action, deeming it ill-founded since it was brought outside the time limits prescribed by law.
Later in 2022, Judge Manon Gaudreault, of the Court of Quebec, agreed with him, a conclusion which has just been confirmed by the Court of Appeal. The first action, filed by the Commission, did not suspend the period that Mme Gabriel to bring his second action, this one for defamation. The woman can still appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, if the latter agrees to hear the case.
As for Jérémy Gabriel, he also filed a second lawsuit against Mike Ward. She had been put on ice while awaiting the outcome of her mother’s. Then, last November, he officially ended this process.