A disabled former child singer from Quebec, Jérémy Gabriel, and his mother are suing comedian Mike Ward for more than $300,000 for Ward’s relentless mocking of Gabriel in his standup routines.
The lawsuit filed in Quebec Superior Court Tuesday alleges that Ward’s jokes had a “destructive effect” on Gabriel, who lives with a congenital facial abnormality called Treacher-Collins Syndrome, and that to this day the young man lives “constantly in fear.”
The suit comes three months after the Supreme Court ruled Ward did not breach the limits of free speech guaranteed under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms when he ridiculed Gabriel, at the time a high school student, on stage.
The lawsuit says Gabriel’s school marks and his singing career suffered, and that the jokes drove him to think about suicide.
Gabriel filed a complaint with Quebec’s Human Rights Commission in 2012, and the commission eventually ordered Ward to pay the Gabriel and his family $42,000 in damages.
Ward challenged that order all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which overturned the ruling on Oct. 29.
More to come
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