Controversial social media personality, Melissa Ann Atwell, also known as “Melly Mel”, has been ordered to pay the Dr Balwant Singh’s Hospital Inc. and its principal Dr Madhu Singh over $38 million for defamation.
The judgment was handed down by High Court Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln on September 3.
The claimants had commenced the claim for damages for defamatory statements published over several days in June 2019 by Atwell, also known as ‘Melly Mel’ on her Facebook page.
After the close of the trial, the court found that the statements were defamatory of the claimants and that Atwell’s defence of justification failed.
The court found that Atwell went on an unverified campaign against the claimants by posting several allegations based on statements alleged to have been received from third parties. The court further found that there is no evidence that Atwell took steps to verify the truthfulness of the statements or that she requested either a comment or response from the claimants.
In fact, Atwell admitted under cross examination that she did not check with the hospital to ascertain whether the persons who made statements were patients with the hospital and relied solely on the information given to her by these persons.
As such, the court ordered that Atwell pay $20,000,000 to Dr Singh and $15,000,000 to the hospital for the defamatory statements published. She was also ordered to pay costs of $3,150,000.
Further, she was ordered remove or cause to be removed all the defamatory statements complained of from her Facebook account.
The claimants were represented by Robin Stoby, S.C., Mr. Stephen Fraser SC and Mrs. Shantel Scott-Lall.
Meanwhile, Atwell was represented by Sanjeev Datadin, Donovan Rangiah, Anessa Chow and Mohanie Anagnaoo.
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