Court File and Parties

Court of Appeal for Ontario Date: 2024-11-01 Docket: COA-24-CV-0886

Before: Rouleau, Roberts and Favreau JJ.A.

Between: Peter Wu, Plaintiff (Appellant/Responding Party)

And: City of Toronto, Defendant (Respondent/Moving Party)

Counsel: Peter Wu, acting in person Alison Barclay, for the respondent/moving party

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 Frederick L. Myers of the Superior Court of Justice, dated July 23, 2024.

Reasons for Decision

[1] The appellant appeals the dismissal of his motion to add parties and amend his claim, and the dismissal of his action on summary judgment, with costs awarded against him in the amount of $32,500.

[2] Following a request made by the respondent, this court gave notice to the appellant that it was considering dismissing the appeal pursuant to r. 2.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. In response to the notice, the appellant amended his notice of appeal and made written submissions.

[3] Rule 2.1.01(1) of the Rules permits this court to make an order staying or dismissing an appeal that appears on its face to be frivolous or vexatious or otherwise an abuse of the process of the court. An action should not be dismissed under this rule if it is a close call: Vinczer v. 7084421 Canada Ltd., 2022 ONCA 400, at para. 5. As this court recently reiterated in Mohammad v. Springer Nature, 2024 ONCA 745, at para. 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’” (citation omitted).

[4] In our view, this is not a close call but the clearest of cases. The appellant’s appeal has all the hallmarks of frivolous and vexatious litigation: see, for example, Scaduto v. The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2015 ONCA 733, 343 O.A.C. 87, leave to appeal refused, [2015] S.C.C.A. No. 488; and Lochner v. Ontario Civilian Police Commission, 2020 ONCA 720. The appellant replaced his initial 46-page notice of appeal with a 67-page amended notice of appeal. Both contain very long narrations and a litany of complaints including allegations of unparticularized conspiracies and frauds about by-law amendments to, as Mr. Wu states in his amended notice of appeal, “block discovery of the property’s right being stolen”. But neither puts forward any arguable ground of appeal. The appeal has no chance of success.

[5] We see no error in the motion judge’s careful and thorough reasons that clearly explain why the proposed addition of parties and untenable amendments was not permitted, and why the claim should be dismissed on summary judgment. As the motion judge explained:

Mr. Wu has sadly become a vexatious litigant. He is indefatigable in digging for documents, altering his narrative to fit new-found facts, drafting lengthy documents that take time to read and digest – like unanswerable requests to admit – and then re-writing new versions of them so they have to be read, analyzed, and synthesized all over again.

[6] For these reasons, we dismiss Mr. Wu’s appeal.

Paul Rouleau J.A. L.B. Roberts J.A. L. Favreau J.A.