B.C. Court Of Appeal Declines To Recognize New Tort Of "Blacklisting"

• Published date: 21 December 2021
• Law Firm: McCarthy Tétrault LLP
• Author: Canadian Appeals Monitor and Connor Bildfell

In FORCOMP Forestry Consulting Ltd. v. British Columbia,¹ the B.C. Court of Appeal declined to recognize a new tort of "blacklisting". The Court of Appeal held that the proposed tort would not "reflect an incremental development to an existing body of law", and therefore the plaintiffs' claim for "blacklisting" should be struck as having no reasonable chance of success.² The decision reminds litigants that although courts may recognize a new common law cause of action, they may do so only if the new cause of action would reflect an incremental development of the law. Otherwise, the claim will be struck at the pleadings stage.

Facts

The plaintiffs ' a forestry consulting company and its principal, Mr. Watts ' sued British Columbia and several Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development employees for conspiracy, misfeasance in public office, breach of the plaintiffs' s. 2(b) Charter rights to freedom of expression, and the proposed tort of "blacklisting". The plaintiffs alleged that Mr. Watts had pointed out errors in the Ministry's data management and analysis, which embarrassed the defendants and caused them to resent him. The plaintiffs also alleged that, in retaliation, the defendants conspired to deprive the...