Hilary Young

Research interests

• defamation law
• tort law
• health law
• remedies
• privacy law

Biography

Hilary joined UNB Law in 2012. After clerking for Justice Louis LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada, she was a civil litigator at Cox & Palmer in Halifax. She has an international reputation as a defamation law scholar and also has expertise in torts and health law. Her research has been cited by the courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She is one of the authors of Linden, Feldthusen, Hall, Knutsen & Young, Canadian Tort Law 11th ed. (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2018).

She obtained her LLB at the University of Ottawa, where she won the Gold Medal, and then an LLM from Harvard Law School. Before going to law school, she earned a doctorate in linguistics from Rice University.

Courses taught

• Torts
• Remedies
• Health Law
• Defamation and Privacy Law
• Advanced Torts

Current research includes chairing the Uniform Law Conference of Canada Working Group on defamation law reform and being a member of the SLAPP Research Group. She also worked extensively with the Law Commission of Ontario on its defamation law reform project.

She co-authors Canadian Tort Law and Jeff Berryman et al’s Remedies: Cases and Materials.

Hilary’s work is regularly cited by the courts. An article on defamation law was cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in Bent v Platnick, 2020 SCC 23, as was her article on “Rasouli consent” – the need for consent to withhold or withdraw life–sustaining medical treatment – in Cuthbertson v Rasouli, 2013 SCC 53.

Selected publications

Allen Linden, Bruce Feldthusen, Margaret Hall, Erik Knutsen & Hilary Young, Canadian Tort Law 13th ed (2026, Toronto: LexisNexis), (also 11th ed, 2008 and 12th ed, 2022).

Jeffrey Berryman et al. Remedies: Cases and Materials 9th ed (2026, Toronto: Emond)

Hilary Young, “Disentangling ‘informed consent’”, (2025) 50:2 Queen’s LJ.

Hilary Young, “Permanent Injunctions in Defamation Actions” (2023) 46:2 Dal LJ

Hilary Young, “Anti-SLAPP Laws In Action” (2022) 100:2 Canadian Bar Review 187.

Hilary Young, “The Scope of Canadian Defamation Injunctions” (2021) 44:1 Dal LJ 285.

Emily Laidlaw and Hilary Young, “Creating a Revenge Porn Tort”, in Hilary Young, ed., The Canadian Law of Obligations and Access to Justice (2020, Toronto: LexisNexis), also published as (2020) 96 Supreme Court Law Review.

Emily Laidlaw and Hilary Young, “Internet Intermediary Liability in Defamation” (2019) 56 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 112–161.

Hilary Young, “The Canadian Defamation Action: An Empirical Study” (2017) 95:3 Canadian Bar Review 591–630.

Hilary Young, “Rethinking Canadian Defamation Law as Applied to Corporate Plaintiffs” (2013) 46:2 University of British Columbia Law Review 529–588.

Hilary Young, “Why Withdrawing Life Support Should Not Require “Rasouli Consent”, (2012) 6:2 McGill Journal of Law & Health 54–104.