B.C.’s top court has dismissed an appeal by Simon Fraser University’s student newspaper of a successful defamation lawsuit launched by the former financial coordinator of the student union at Douglas College.

Joey Hansen took the Peak to court following the publication of three articles that focused on the Douglas Students’ Union’s financial woes and the political controversy surrounding the organization at the time.

The reports, which appeared in print and online in May and June of 2006, were based in part on a forensic review of the Douglas Students’ Union’s finances that was shown to contain inaccuracies after all three articles had been published.

In March 2009, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the Peak Publications Society, the nonprofit organization behind the weekly student paper, and its former copy editor, Derrick Harder, had defamed Hansen.

The defendants were found jointly and severally liable, and Hansen was awarded $30,000 in general damages.

The Peak and Harder raised the appeal on the grounds that the B.C. Supreme Court trial judge should not have rejected the defamation defence of statutory qualified privilege, and that a recently emerged defence known as responsible communication on matters of public interest was now available.

In the reasons for judgment issued on November 1, Justice Kathryn Neilson supported the findings of the trial judge.

On behalf of a panel of three judges, Neilson wrote that, following a reexamination of the findings in light of new developments in Canadian defamation law, the responsible communication defence did not apply in this case.

“The three articles did not indicate their truth had not been verified,” Neilson stated. “Nor did they fairly set out both sides of the dispute.”

The Peak, which has been publishing since 1965, receives much of its funding through a student levy.