CITATION: Zeleny v. Canada, 2016 ONSC 7226
BELLEVILLE COURT FILE NO.: CV-16-0292
DATE: 20161118
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO
RE: Deryl Clayton, Zeleny In Personam Beneficiary, Trustee
Applicant
AND
CANADA CIK #:0000230098
Justin Trudeau acting as Prime Minister of CANADA In Personam
DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE
William Francis Morneau acting as Minister of Finance Canada In Personam
Richard Dupas acting as RCMP Liaison officer Thailand In Personam
Respondents
BEFORE: Mr. Justice Timothy Minnema
COUNSEL: None
HEARD: In Chambers
ENDORSEMENT ON REQUEST TO DISMISS – Rule 2.1.01
[1] The applicant Mr. Zeleny claims to have been in possession of pieces of paper that he purports are “historic financial instrument(s) (bonds)”. From the copies filed I note that:
(a) Unlike valid government bonds, the usual recitals of a clear obligation to pay, payment or redemption date, interest rate and intervals are not present. The wording of the documents themselves is nonsensical.
(b) There are numerous misspellings of critical words, such as “Unted States of America”, “The Onited Staes”, “Minisiry of Finance”, Minisidy of Finance”, “pricipals and Interests”, “the departmnt of The treasury”, “irtest free note”, and “Valid for Evev”. There are more examples. Often there is no spacing between words.
[2] Anyone reading these documents can see at a glance that they are not to be taken seriously. Mr. Zeleny, however, takes them very seriously. He asserts that they are currently worth 127.5 billion U.S. dollars.
[3] Rather than take his documents to an American bank or American government agency -- the logical choice if they had any air of reality -- Mr. Zeleny, a Canadian citizen, attended a Canadian Embassy in Thailand and left the “bonds” there. They were subsequently assessed by the RCMP. Since around May of 2016, Mr. Zeleny’s overtures to have discussions with Canadian government officials related to these documents, including the Minister of Finance, have gone unanswered. He has therefore commenced an application against the named respondents. He seeks per his originating process and factum “compensatory damages” for the “value of the bond”, and also what he calls “treble damages” (tripling of damages) relying on a general reference in Black’s Law Dictionary. The total amount sought in his application is therefore $510,000,000,000 U.S. dollars (510 billion dollars). To put this number somewhat in perspective, the published Canadian federal budget for 2015 (total estimated revenues) was about 290 billion Canadian dollars which, after the currency conversion, is less than half of the amount claimed.
[4] Upon receiving Mr. Zeleny’s application the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) delivered a ‘Requisition for an Order of the Court Dismissing this Application’ per Rule 2.1.01(6) of the Rules of Civil Procedure. Other than that, no material by any responding party has been filed. Mr. Philippe Lacasse counsel for the DOJ appeared at the return date of the application on September 6, 2016. He directed my attention to Rule 2.1.01 and urged me to dismiss the proceeding on my own initiative as being frivolous and vexatious. I made an order at that time staying the proceeding on an interim basis and, per the summary procedure found in Rule 2.1.01(3), allowed an opportunity for written submissions only. Mr. Zeleny has provided his written submissions but has also included several motions for interim and final relief including a request that I recuse myself because of a lack of familiarity with world finances.
[5] Mr. Zeleny’s written submissions are in keeping with the facts as set out above. In my view this is a clear case of a claim that on its face is so completely devoid of merit that it cannot succeed. No reasonable person would expect to obtain the relief sought. I therefore dismiss the proceeding as frivolous and vexatious. No order as to costs.
Mr. Justice Timothy Minnema
Date: November 18, 2016