Help! Lesbian couple sued for $6M over tweets

A Guelph medical imaging clinic and its owner have launched a lawsuit which, if successful, could severely restrict how LGBTQ people are permitted to express themselves online.

The owner of the clinic has previously tweeted to Justin Trudeau not to “defile” the Canadian flag (after Trudeau carried a maple leaf rainbow flag in a Pride Parade). He also used the anti-trans slur “tranny” on one of his professional Twitter accounts, according to documents filed in court. The clinic has posted photos of the owner with Andrew Scheer, Jason Kenney, and other Conservative politicians.

A lesbian Twitter user alerted people to the messages. In June 2021, the clinic and its owner sued her and her wife for defamation asking for six million dollars for harm to his and his company’s professional reputation and other damages. The case is Probhash Mondal and 2345171 Ontario Inc o/a Guelph Medical Imaging v. Stephanie Marie Evans-Bitten and Kathryn Evans-Bitten (Court File No. CV-21-00664478-0000), and it’s currently winding its way through the courts.

Here is a little bit of the lesbian couple’s Statement of Defence:

In the June 11 Tweet, Stephanie Evans-Bitten did not put words into Mr. Mondal’s mouth. She simply pointed out that he had made inflammatory tweets. She reproduced his own statements claiming that the rainbow flag is “defiled” and using the word “tranny” to describe a drag queen. Mr. Mondal sent these from his own professional Twitter accounts; Ms. Evans-Bitten did nothing wrong by drawing attention to them. […]

Ms. Evans-Bitten believes her comments to be true. She was showing genuine concern about a matter of public interest, and of particular interest and concern to her LGBTQ community, given that she had read his tweets and was aware that:

• Guelph Medical Imaging offers services to the public. These services are medical and, in some cases, deeply personal and intimate. The clinics receive funding for the services they provide from the government through OHIP. Mr. Mondal’s inflammatory tweets were sent through his Guelph Medical Imaging and UBMICO Twitter accounts.

• Mr. Mondal’s tweets were political in the partisan sense. He posted photos of himself with Mr. Scheer, Mr. Kenney, Mr. O’Toole, Mr. Ford, Mr. Lecce and others. He posted hostile and inflammatory tweets about Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Singh, Ms. May, Dr. Tam, and Dr. Mercer. He tweeted his support for various political candidates.

• By posting the inflammatory tweets he did from his professional accounts, Mr.Mondal made himself and his clinics a subject of public controversy.

• Ms. Evans-Bitten is a member of the LGBTQ community in Guelph. She and others were genuinely hurt by Mr. Mondal’s comments about the rainbow flag, trans people and other sensitive topics. She was entitled to refer to and/or comment on them.

Nothing in the claim or defence has yet been proven in court.

Steph and Kath are fighting back, but they need your help. The couple has hired lawyer Marcus McCann of Millard & Company to challenge the lawsuit. They say the lawsuit was designed to silence expression on a matter of public interest, and should be struck out at an early stage. This will test Ontario’s 2015 anti-SLAPP legislation (“strategic litigation against public participation”).

This is an issue every LGBTQ person (and their allies) should care about. People online must be allowed to call attention to statements like the ones in this lawsuit. No one should be able to silence criticism of their views by filing multi-million dollar lawsuits against their LGBTQ critics.

All funds raised will go to the couple’s legal costs. In the event that we are able to raise more funds that they need, any extra funds will be donated to an LGBTQ charity.