Judicial Declarations: Vexatious Litigation (Ontario)

Vexatious Litigation (Ontario)

JUDGE HENRY, of the Ontario High Court of Justice (cited by Yves-Marie Morissette in his twice-published (2001, 2002) Pathologie et thérapeutique du plaideur trop belliqueux: Re Lang Michener and Fabian (1987) 59 O.R. (2d) 353) defines a “vexatious proceeding” (A title and line breaks have been added for clarity).

vexatious proceeding, vexatious action

The bringing of one or more actions to determine an issue which has already been determined constitutes a vexatious proceeding.

Similarly, an action is vexatious where it is obvious that it cannot succeed or that no reasonable person could reasonably expect to obtain relief.

Vexatious actions include those brought for an improper purpose other than the assertion of legitimate rights, including the harassment and oppression of other parties.

It is a general characteristic of vexatious proceeding that grounds and issues raised tend to be rolled forward into subsequent actions, and often supplemented with actions brought against the lawyers who acted for or against the litigant in earlier proceedings.

In determining whether proceedings are vexatious, the court must look at the whole history of the matter and not just whether there was originally a good cause of action.

On the “Rule of Law”

“In public regulation of this sort there is no such thing as absolute and untrammelled ‘discretion’, that is that action can be taken on any ground or for any reason that can be suggested to the mind of the administrator; no legislative Act can, without express language, be taken to contemplate an unlimited arbitrary power exercisable for any purpose, however capricious or irrelevant, regardless of the nature or purpose of the statute. Fraud and corruption in the Commission may not be mentioned in such statutes but they are always implied as exceptions. ‘Discretion’ necessarily implies good faith in discharging public duty; there is always a perspective within which a statute is intended to operate; and any clear departure from its lines or objects is just as objectionable as fraud or corruption.”

— Mr. Justice Ivan Cleveland Rand writing in the most memorable passage in Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121 at the Supreme Court of Canada, page 140.

Random Quote

Fears are mounting that the psychiatrist Anatoly Koryagin is near to death in the notorious jail of Christopol in central Russia. Letters that have reached the West from his wife and a friend indicate that he is so weak that unless he is given expert medical care he could die at any time. Dr. Koryagin has been in prison for the last four years for actively opposing the political abuse of psychiatry. The abuse takes the form of labeling dissidents as mad and forcibly treating them with drugs in mental hospitals. ― Peter B. Reddaway, "The Case of Dr. Koryagin", October 10, 1985 issue of The New York Times Review of Books

A Word on Caricature

“Humor is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule.”

— “The Education of an Organizer”, p. 75, Rules for Radicals, A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky, Random House, New York, 1971.

I am no fan of Saul Alinsky's whose methods are antidemocratic and unparliamentary. But since we are fighting a silent war against the subversive Left, I say, if it works for them, it will work for us. Bring on the ridicule! And in this case, it is richly deserved by the congeries of judicial forces wearing the Tweedle suits, and by those who are accurately conducting our befuddled usurpers towards the Red Dawn.

— Admin, Judicial Madness, 22 March 2016.