ALERT: Canadian judge dismissed all charges in lawsuit against Skeptical climatologist Dr. Tim Ball

Hi Marc:

There are no media reports and my guess is there won’t be any. 

At 0930 on the day the trial started we were told there was no judge or courtroom assigned. Amazingly and incorrectly, that information was reported almost immediately on media claiming the trial was postponed. It wasn’t, because by 1100 a judge and courtroom were assigned and the trail began at 1130. The postponement story likely explained why no media attended a single day of the three week trial. The nature of the case that involves a so-called climate change denier will likely also be ignored. 

The trial was the only one adjudicated so far of the three lawsuits I received from the same lawyer, Roger McConchie, on behalf of three individuals all members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The first was filed on behalf of Gordon McBean, a former Assistant Deputy Minister at Environment Canada. He chaired the founding meeting of the IPCC in 1985.The second was from Professor Andrew Weaver computer modeller and author on four of the IPCC Reports (1995, 2001, 2007 and 2013). The third, filed nine days after the Weaver trial, was on behalf of Michael Mann, whose “hockey stick” graph dominated the 2001 IPCC Report and became what Professor Ross McKitrick called the “poster child of global warming. 

McConchie also filed lawsuits against the publication in each case, which created confusion and conflict as they wanted to settle. 

In the McBean case my wife and I decided not to fight because of the legal cost involved. We simply withdrew the article. 

When we received the Weaver lawsuit we decided we would not be bullied into silence by what we considered to be SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) and spent all our savings on legal fees before John O’Sullivan helped us set up a web site and a Paypal donation tab. 

We later learned that the publication, Canada Free Press (CFP), had accepted and published an apology written by McConchie. I was not consulted or even informed that this was happening. Meanwhile we had hired Michael Scherr, a defamation lawyer with Pearlman Lindholm in Victoria BC. 

The Mann trial was scheduled for February 20, 2017. About a month before the trial, Mann requested an adjournment.  Apparently Canadian courts always grant an adjournment before a trial begins in the hope of an out-of-court settlement. I was opposed but had little choice. 

The Mann case is interesting because it was filed in the supreme Court of British Columbia (BC) by an American citizen from Pennsylvania about something I said after a public presentation about the deception of manmade global warming in Winnipeg, Manitoba. BC had anti-SLAPP legislation but for some reason cancelled it. Now only two of ten Canadian Provinces, the other is Ontario, do not have anti-SLAPP legislation

By the summer of 2017 a date for the Weaver trial was set and it was held in November over three weeks in Vancouver, Canada. Between filing the lawsuit and commencement of the trial, Weaver was elected as a Green Party member for the BC Legislature. At the trial he was the Green Party leader in his second term. The theme of the article he sued me for defamation involved the claim that the political hijacking of climatology by the IPCC set back climate research and understanding by 30 years. In the article I made comments about an interview and experience I had with Weaver that I did not fully substantiate. I wrote a letter of apology for those unsubstantiated comments but not for the overall claims of the article. Weaver posted my letter of apology on what he labelled a “wall of hate” in his University office. It appears just under his left arm in the photo below.

Here is a newspaper article that shows Weaver in front of his wall of hate, apparently designed to show who and how nasty the attacks he sustained because of his views on global warming and attempts to save the planet. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/facing-the-wall-of-hate-a-profile-of-green-party-leader-andrew-weaver-1.4068023

The judge ruled that Weaver was not defamed by me and dismissed the claim completely. This was after almost seven years and thousands of dollars in legal costs. 

Now we prepare to bring the Mann case back to the court. 

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End Dr. Ball note to Climate Depot

Background: 

Flashback 2011: Warmist UN scientist Sues Skeptic for Libel