Court File and Parties

Court: COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO Date: 2024-10-08 Docket: COA-24-CV-0687

Before: Huscroft, Harvison Young and Copeland JJ.A.

Between: Ahmad Mohammad, Plaintiff (Appellant) And: Springer Nature, Defendant (Respondent)

Counsel: Ahmad Mohammad, acting in person Eric Thomas Leinveer and Z. William Totzke, for the respondent

Heard: In writing

Determination pursuant to r. 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194, with respect to the appeal from the order of Justice R. Lee Akazaki of the Superior Court of Justice, dated June 10, 2024, with reasons reported at 2024 ONSC 3338.

Reasons for Decision

[1] The appellant, Ahmad Mohammad (aka Ahmad Yousef), appeals from an order striking his statement of claim against the respondent, Springer Nature, without leave to amend. The respondent requested an order dismissing the appeal under r. 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194. On July 22, 2024, the court notified the appellant that it was considering making that order and invited him to file written submissions on the matter.

[2] The appellant did not respond to that notice within 15 days, as contemplated by r. 2.1.01(3), paras. 2-3. Instead, the appellant submitted an amended notice of appeal and suggested that the respondent intentionally concealed material facts in its request to this court.

[3] For the reasons that follow, the appeal is dismissed as frivolous and vexatious.

Analysis

[4] Dismissal under r. 2.1 applies only to “the clearest of cases where the abusive nature of the proceeding is apparent on the face of the pleading and there is a basis in the pleadings to support the resort to the attenuated process”: Scaduto v. The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2015 ONCA 733, 343 O.A.C. 87, at para. 8. This appeal represents the clearest of cases.

[5] In the court below, [1] the appellant claimed that the respondent published fraudulent research causing a “mental tort”, a compensable loss by violating a government-imposed research framework, and a conflict with a professor that ultimately led to his expulsion from school.

[6] The motion judge struck the appellant’s claim for failure to disclose a reasonable cause of action. He held that the appellant lacked standing to challenge the putative falsity of the research at issue or its alleged effect on public funds, and that the alleged mental harm was neither an injury recognized by the law nor reasonably foreseeable to the respondent in any event.

[7] The appellant’s initial notice of appeal simply restates the allegations in his statements of claim in brief and general terms. The appellant’s amended notice of appeal, although longer, asserts that the motion judge failed to recognize the various harms the appellant alleged in his statements of claim. It also alleges that the respondent “hid” his amended statement of claim from this court in its request for r. 2.1 review.

[8] The appeal materials bear many of the hallmarks of frivolous and vexatious litigation. They “reflect re-litigation, the rehashing of the same complaints, and spurious inflammatory allegations”, and lack any prospect of success: Lochner v. Ontario Civilian Police Commission, 2020 ONCA 720, at para. 23. They also reintroduce grounds and issues from prior proceedings and contain submissions inappropriate in both their form and content.

[9] This appeal continues a pattern of frivolous and vexatious litigation the appellant has undertaken in this court and the Superior Court of Justice: Mohammad v. McMaster University, 2023 ONCA 598; Mohammad v. Bakr, 2024 ONCA 347, leave to appeal to S.C.C. requested, 41330; Mohammad v. Munn, 2023 ONSC 4361; Mohammad v. Springer Nature, 2023 ONSC 5523. The first of these appeals consolidated three separate r. 2.1 orders issued against the appellant.

[10] The appellant’s notices of appeal are unintelligible. The appeals cannot succeed. That justifies recourse to r. 2.1, and we therefore dismiss the appeal as frivolous and vexatious.

Disposition

[11] The appeal is dismissed. There is no order as to costs.

“Grant Huscroft J.A.”

“A. Harvison Young J.A.”

“J. Copeland J.A.”

Footnotes

[1] The appellant submitted two statements of claim below. The motion judge considered his amended statement of claim, and we do the same, so as to take the appellant’s case at its highest.