A case study in poverty law – taking on the Landlord

Sarah Dawes, a widow in Kingston Ontario started a blog. She had no idea what the consequences would be.

She wasn’t getting much traffic, but before she knew it her landlord Homestead Holdings had sent an eviction notice.

Instead of backing down Ms. Dawes decided to move off her ISP webpage set up Blogger and use her blog and the Human Rights Tribunal to forward her case.

For anyone who has been following this case, I sincerely thank you for your interest. It is my hope that this can possibly help another Blogger or Tenant, so that none of the personal pain and anguish I have experienced and will continue to experience, will be in vain. For anyone, who has offered comments, I also thank you. I humbly welcome and appreciate all comments. I do not have to agree with them, to post them.

She goes on to state the anonymous abuse she has received. ( Abuse isn’t that anonymous in a blog comment section - access to the logs brings up the IP’s, and all email has IP’s) Landlord-tenant disputes are all too common, and usually the tenant has little knowledge of recourse. In this case Ms. Dawes did, and with the help of the legal clinic put together an important case that was followed  by poverty law advocates across the country.

Most tenants don’t know what to do, how to do it and who to go to for help. If nothing else Ms. Dawes experience is a good read for tenants in dispute and law clinic public information personnel. We cannot criminalize the language of poverty.

An article in the Kingston Whig-Standard outlines the events, the steps she took and why the tribunal ruled in her favour. (April 5th: Local News: Landlord Vs Blogger: Dismissed)

The case was seen as an important one of free speech and the emerging area of “cyberlibel.” The company had claimed the contents of the blog had “substantially interfered with the reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex by the landlord or other tenants” in the same way as if Dawe had been causing damage to the unit or holding loud parties.

Homestead had taken issue with Dawe’s little-read blog and its lawyers had it taken down when it was on a Canadian server.

She re-posted the material verbatim on a Google server based in the United States, where libel laws are different and where it is more difficult to hold an Internet service provider liable for the material users make available.

That led to her being served an eviction notice in February unless she agreed to take the site down. The widow, who lives on a disability pension, challenged the order last month in front of the tribunal that hears landlord-tenant disputes in Ontario.

Her lawyer, John Done of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic, prepared a comprehensive defence that touched on everything from freedom of speech to the ability of the tribunal to judge what is essentially a libel claim and its inability to shut down the blog in any case.

Homestead is the largest landlord in Kingston. They didn’t have representation at the hearing.

“My ideal order would have been one setting out how low-income people communicate,” he said, noting that they are most likely to be caught in such situations because they are more likely to live in rental accommodation.

The case can be appealed to divisional court, but because Homestead introduced so little evidence to bolster its case in front of the adjudicator, an appeal of the tribunal decision based on the evidence it had before it would be difficult.

“It was curious, because in 17 years, I’ve had lots of cases with Homestead because they’re the biggest landlord in the city, and this was the first one I’ve argued where they didn’t even have a landlord’s agent representing them,” Done said.

The Inquirer UK
The Gazette: U of Alberta