Court of Appeal for Ontario

CITATION: Direkoglu v. Toronto Police Services Board, 2012 ONCA 587

DATE: 20120907

DOCKET: C55258

BEFORE: Cronk, Epstein and Pepall JJ.A.

BETWEEN

Kemal Direkoglu Plaintiff (Appellant)

and

Toronto Police Services Board P.C. Spence McDonald, Badge No. 7616 P.C. Darren Worth, Badge No. 5335 P.C. Todd Jocko, Badge No. 7654 P.C. Joel Houston, Badge No. 5441 and P.C. Daniel MacNab, Badge No. 5353 Defendants (Respondents)

COUNSEL: Kemal Direkoglu, in person Robin A.F. Squires, for the respondents

Heard and released orally: September 4, 2012

On appeal from the order of Justice Thomas R. Lederer of the Superior Court of Justice, dated February 29, 2012.

ENDORSEMENT

[1] The respondents moved to dismiss the appellant’s action as a result of his failure to abide by six outstanding costs orders relating to various unsuccessful motions and appeals brought by the appellant in protracted litigation with one or more of the respondents. All six orders, totalling approximately $6,000, were outstanding at the time of the motion. By order dated February 29, 2012, T.R. Lederer J. of the Superior Court of Justice granted the requested dismissal order and awarded the costs of the motion and the action to the respondents. The appellant appeals.

(1) Appellant’s Adjournment Request

[2] At the outset of oral argument, the appellant sought to make submissions in support of a request that this appeal be “stood down” pending the determination of what he said were outstanding proceedings before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Canadian Judicial Council, among other bodies. In effect, he sought an adjournment of the appeal pending resolution of those matters. The respondents opposed the adjournment request.

[3] After hearing submissions, we declined to adjourn the appeal. Nothing in the materials filed by the appellant justified a last minute adjournment of the appeal. On those materials, it was unclear whether the allegedly outstanding proceedings relate in any way to the matters in issue on this appeal. Indeed, it was not established that the proceedings described by the appellant in fact were in progress. We therefore proceeded to the hearing of the appeal on the merits.

(2) Merits of the Appeal

[4] After his adjournment request was denied, the appellant declined to make any submissions on the merits of his appeal, despite being afforded an opportunity to do so. We therefore considered the arguments advanced in his written materials.

[5] The appellant filed a lengthy notice of appeal (152 pages) in which he sought, among other relief, the repeal, revision or amendment of numerous legislative enactments, both provincial and federal, and various monetary remedies. However, notwithstanding his lengthy notice of appeal, his grounds of appeal from the challenged order are unclear. Moreover, nowhere in his materials does the appellant deny that the relevant cost orders were outstanding at the time of the motion before the motion judge. Instead, in his factum, he asserts (as he did before the motion judge) that the costs orders are invalid for unspecified reasons and that he is unable to satisfy the costs orders due to impecuniosity, which he claims resulted from police theft of his money and that of his family.

[6] We see no merit to the arguments raised by the appellant. The costs orders at issue were valid and outstanding at the time of the motion and the appellant failed to comply with any of them. There was no evidence before the motion judge – and there is none before this court – of the appellant’s alleged impecuniosity. Indeed, on the record before the motion judge, there was some evidence to the contrary.

[7] We therefore see no error in the motion judge’s reasoning or in his disposition of the motion. The appeal is dismissed. As the respondents do not seek their costs of the appeal, we award no costs.

“E.A. Cronk J.A.”

“Gloria J. Epstein J.A.”

“Sarah Pepall J.A.”