The Case of Defamation and the Dangerous Dog

Today's case is the Case of Defamation and the Dangerous Dog or, to use its correct legal name, Sisett v. Regional District of Central Okanagan. It is the case of a standard Poodle named Charlie, and his owners Mr. Ian Sisett and Mrs. Marguerite Sisett. The case is actually a continuation of sorts, as we have covered this family and its dog in previous blogs.

The Sisetts and Charlie had a series of incidents where they came into conflict with other animals, persons and/or the law over the years and, I won’t go into them all in detail here, because that has been covered in the other blog entries, which you can read about in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series of blogs entitled The Problematic Poodle. However, I will briefly summarize the key points of the previous incidents because they are relevant to today’s case.

This series of unfortunate incidents involving Charlie the Poodle began on a day in January 2020, when he was one year old. On that winter day, Mr. Ian Sisett was exercising Charlie and two other dogs of his off leash on a field on the campus of Okanagan College in Kelowna, British Columbia. Charlie was a full-size standard Poodle, a breed of dogs commonly 40-70 lbs. in weight in their adulthood.

As it happened, a woman named Ms. Melanie Michaels was walking her small dog (less than 10lbs.) named Spike on a public sidewalk adjacent to the field, and Mr. Sisett’s three dogs decided to run over to her and her pet. Charlie charged at Spike, took the smaller dog up in his jaws and shook him violently, breaking Spike’s jaw in the process. This incident was witnessed by a passing motorist who stopped her vehicle and came over to check on Ms. Michaels and her dog.

Mr. Sisett then called his dogs back to him, loaded the three animals into his vehicle and drove away from the scene, without speaking to Ms. Michaels. At the time, Ms. Michaels did not know Mr. Sisett’s identity, and when he left without identifying himself or speaking to her, this would lead to her later speculating it was to avoid responsibility; and indeed, Judicial Justice Burgess of the Provincial Court would come to the same conclusion in later legal proceedings in Provincial Court.

Following the incident, Ms. Michaels took Spike to the veterinarian for surgery to correct his broken jaw, but this surgery was not entirely successful, and Spike ended up with a permanently twisted jaw and an inability to eat hard food. And Ms. Michaels ended up with roughly $6000 in veterinary costs.

Ms. Michaels also reported the dog attack to the Regional District of Central Okanagan, the local government responsible for providing animal control services where the incident occurred. Their animal control officer investigated and ended up identifying Mr. Sisett as the owner of Charlie. The officer then decided to issue Mr. Sisett with a written notice informing him that he had determined Charlie to be a “dangerous dog” pursuant to the regional district’s Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw and the provincial Community Charter, and that Mr. Sisett was required to take certain measures to prevent further attacks involving Charlie. These included, but were not limited to, keeping him in a secure enclosure and posting a warning sign on his property. Some time after that notice, the officer also decided to issue Mr. Sisett with a $1000 ticket for allegedly violating Section 36 of the Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw by causing or permitting Charlie to become a dangerous dog.

In the days after the incident, Ms. Michaels also began to take steps to try to identify the owner of the dog which had attacked Spike. She went to the college campus security office and asked whether they had any video of the incident, but they did not. She would also make a post on Facebook asking for help in identifying the dog owner, and later she would give an interview to the media.

Also, sometime around this point, Mr. Sisett and his wife had someone deliver a note to Spike’s owner, Ms. Michaels. The note apologized for the incident and the envelope also contained $200 cash, which the note stated was to cover the cost of having Ms. Michaels’ dog checked by a veterinarian. It is worth noting that it is not clear whether the Sisetts were aware of the extent of Spike’s injuries or Ms. Michaels’ veterinary costs at this point, but it is also worth noting that the note was unsigned and did not contain a name or any other information that would allow Ms. Michaels to identify the Sisetts.

Some time then passed, as Mr. Sisett and his disputed $1000 ticket would not end up going to trial in the Provincial Court of British Columbia until February 2021, a full year after the incident. However, in the time before that trial, Mr. Sisett and Mrs. Sisett decided that they were unhappy with how they were being portrayed by certain persons in the community over the dog attack. They believed that Ms. Michaels, in her online postings and her interview with the media, were saying things that were painting them in a bad light and, so, in January 2021 they had a lawyer issue a letter to Ms. Michaels.

In court documents that Ms. Michaels would later file, she stated the letter alleged she was defaming the Sisetts with the public statements she had made. She stated the letter demanded she take down the Facebook posting and have the news story about the dog attack taken down, and then issue a written apology to the Sisetts. If Ms. Michaels did not comply with the letter’s demands, it warned that she would face legal action from the SIsetts.

No such retraction or apology was forthcoming from Ms. Michaels though, and she went ahead with testifying as a witness against Mr. Sisett in his trial over the $1000 ticket. After that trial, Judicial Justice Burgess of the Provincial Court found Mr. Sisett guilty and upheld the $1000 ticket. It should be noted though that Mr. Sisett would go on to appeal this conviction to the Supreme Court of British Columbia and that court would overturn his conviction, deciding that the Judicial Justice in the Provincial Court had applied the wrong legal test. However, the Supreme Court refused to overturn the designation of Mr. Sisett’s dog as a dangerous dog, which indicates the animal control officer’s decision to declare the dog dangerous was appropriate.

We won’t go into that appeal as that would be too lengthy, but you can read more about that in Part 2 of our series titled The Problematic Poodle if you want more details.

In August 2021, the Sisetts filed the paperwork to commence a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Ms. Michaels. It alleged she had committed defamation by making statements online and to the media. For example, the lawsuit alleged she had been portraying the Sisetts as irresponsible owners with bad character and was making it seem like they were trying to avoid accountability. They went on to claim that there had been no need for Ms. Michaels to go public with an appeal to find out the identity of Mr. Sisett, because the animal control officer had known his identity, and it was alleged he would have shared this information with Ms. Michaels.

The lawsuit was not only aimed at Ms. Michaels though. They also named the Regional District of Central Okanagan and the animal control officer as co-defendants, accusing them of wrongdoing. Various allegations of improper investigation techniques, invasion of privacy and defamation were made against the regional district and its animal control officer that I won’t get into here, due to time constraints, but perhaps we will investigate that another time. For now, we will focus on the defamation allegations against Ms. Michaels.

In a response to the Sisett lawsuit, which was filed later in August 2021, Ms. Michaels stated that her efforts to identify Mr. Sisett had been legitimate and that the animal control officer had not shared his identity with her. She indicated that she had only learned his name when his lawyer had sent her the letter in January 2021 demanding she issue a retraction and apology for her public statements. She also denied suggestions that there was any sort of collusion between her and the animal control officer to besmirch the Sisetts’ reputation, as had been suggested in the lawsuit. She asserted her motives in going public with her story had been to identify Mr. Sisett and out of genuine concern that his dog might pose a danger to other animals. Further, she claimed that since Mr. Sisett had left the scene of the dog attack without speaking to her, it was reasonable to believe that he may have been attempting to avoid accountability.

Some months then went by, as various motions and applications were dealt with in the lawsuit before it could go to trial. In fact, some years went by. And during this time, the Sisetts and Charlie the Poodle were continuing to have other legal troubles.

Actually, to be precise, other legal troubles had begun for the Sisetts before they even filed their lawsuit in August 2021, because in July 2021 there had been another dog attack involving Charlie. On July 18th of that month Charlie had been in another incident where he grabbed a smaller dog in his mouth, a Yorkshire Terrier named Nahla, and violently shook it, causing injuries. That incident would lead to Charlie being seized by animal control officers and Mr. Sisett being prosecuted again. But, as before, we don’t have the ability to go into depth for that case here, so if you would like more information on it, you can check out Part 3 of The Problematic Poodle series.

With regards to the defamation lawsuit against Ms. Michaels, that would not see any substantial movement until July 2023, when Justice Weatherill of the Supreme Court dismissed the Sisett lawsuit against Ms. Michaels. To boil it down, the Justice found the Sisetts’ claims of defamation were without merit and so dismissed the case. However, the other part of the lawsuit, alleging various forms of misconduct against the regional district would continue and is still ongoing as of the time of writing.

So, what are my takeaways from all this? I’m not sure, other than dog owners can be very protective of their animals and willing to go great lengths to defend them against what, in their eyes at least, persons who are maligning them. Some are even willing to launch legal actions over the matter and accuse people of defamation for speaking out about incidents of violence involving their pets. At the end of the day, Ms. Michaels was vindicated and the lawsuit against her dismissed, but she still had to go to court and hire a lawyer to defend herself, so speaking out came with a cost.

SOURCES:

Community Charter, SBC 2003, c 26. https://canlii.ca/t/5660d

Johansen, N. (2023, April 28). Kelowna man ordered to pay $12,000 over dangerous dog bylaw offences. Castanet. https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/423689/Kelowna-man-ordered-to-pay-12-000-over-dangerous-dog-bylaw-offences

Johansen, N. (2024, May 4). Kelowna dog owner's bylaw penalty reduced by BC Supreme Court. Castanet. https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/485676/Kelowna-dog-owner-s-bylaw-penalty-reduced-by-BC-Supreme-Court

Potenteau, D. (2020, February 8). Kelowna woman seeking video help after pet dog allegedly attacked by poodle. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/6526240/kelowna-pet-dog-attacked-poodle/

Regional District of Central Okanagan Responsible Dog Ownership Bylaw No. 1343, 2014 (Consolidated). https://www.rdco.com/en/your-government/resources/Bylaws/BL1343-Consolidated-Regulate-License-Control-Responsible-Dog-Ownership-2023.pdf

Regional District of Central Okanagan v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 47 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jw601

Regional District of Central Okanagan v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 100 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jx8rd

Regional District v. Sisett, 2023 BCPC 75 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jwvxb

R. v Sisett (2021, July 12), Kelowna M-1 4908-1 (BCPC). https://govlaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Regina-v-Sisett-Reasons-for-Judgment-Filed-July-12-2021.pdf

R. v Sisett, 2022 BCSC 841 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/jpbfh

Sisett v Central Okanagan (Regional District), 2024 BCSC 730 (CanLII). https://canlii.ca/t/k4f08

Sisett v. Regional District of Central Okanagan [Ongoing as of May 31, 2024], Kelowna 131765 (BCSC).

The American Kennel Club, Inc. (n.d.). Poodle (Standard). American Kennel Club. Retrieved March 29, 2024 from https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/poodle-standard/

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