Court File and Parties
Court File No.: CV-16-160 Date: 2017-01-23 Superior Court of Justice - Ontario
Re: Rory Adrian Van Sluytman, Plaintiff And: Department of Justice Canada, Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Government of Ontario, Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, Ministry of Attorney General – Ontario, Legal Aid Ontario, Bracebridge’s Lake Country Community Legal Clinic, Defendants
Before: The Honourable Justice T.M. Wood
Counsel: Rory Adrian Van Sluytman, in person for the Plaintiff Haniya Sheikh, Counsel, for the Defendant Department of Justice Canada Sunil Mathai, Counsel, for the Defendants Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Government of Ontario, Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-term Care and Ministry of Attorney General - Ontario Peter Sibenik, Counsel, for the Defendant Legislative Assembly of Ontario Marie Abraham, Counsel, for the Defendant Legal Aid Ontario Ian S. Epstein and Zack Garcia, Counsel, for the Defendant Lake Country Community Legal Clinic
Heard: Written submissions
Endorsement
This is a review commenced at the request of the Department of Justice Canada, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, the Ontario Crown Law Office on behalf of various named ministries, and Lake Country Community Legal Clinic, pursuant to Rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The plaintiff has commenced this action and 10 more in the filing office of the Superior Court of Justice in Bracebridge within the last five months. He has also begun two more actions in the Barrie office of the Court and one or more in the Oshawa office. All of the claims in the various actions arise from the plaintiff’s general discontent with his interactions with police, social work, mental health, and medical personnel over a number of years. This particular claim apparently arises as a result of an incident which occurred on or about May 26, 2010. It appears that sometime around this date the plaintiff was involuntarily committed to hospital under what is commonly referred to as a “form two”.
I use the word apparently as the statement of claim contains no statement of fact much less the “concise statement of the material facts on which the party relies” required by Rule 25.06(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure. It refers rather, to affidavits of the plaintiff which, upon examination, contain no factual assertions but appear rather to be collections of documents akin to exhibit books.
Rule 2.1.01 empowers the Court at the request of a party or on its own initiative to stay or dismiss a proceeding which it finds on its face to be frivolous or vexatious or an abuse of the Court’s process. The approach to be taken when conducting such reviews has been extensively explored by Myers J. in a series of decisions which have been specifically adopted with approval by the Court of Appeal in Scaduto v. The Law Society of Upper Canada 2015 ONCA 733.
In Gao v. Ontario WSIB 2014 ONSC 4916 Myers J. summarises the rule and how it should be applied as follows:
9 Rule 2.1 is not meant to apply to close calls. It is not a short form of summary judgment. But that does not mean that it is not to be robustly interpreted and applied. Where a proceeding appears on its face to meet the standards of frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process, the court should be prepared to rigorously enforce the rule to nip the proceeding in the bud. Rigorous enforcement of this rule will not only protect respondents from incurring unrecoverable costs, but should contribute to access to justice by freeing up judicial and administrative resources that are so acutely needed to implement the "culture shift" mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada. The new rule tailors appropriate procedural fairness for the category of cases involved and is an example of early resolution of civil cases that is very much in line with the goals set out in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7.
In a second proceeding involving the same litigants 2014 ONSC 6497 Myers J. expands on this theme and explores some of the characteristics displayed by the pleadings in frivolous or vexatious actions. This discussion may be briefly summarised as follows.
Both “frivolous” and “vexatious” actions can be defined as ones lacking a legal basis or legal merit or commenced without reasonable grounds (paragraph 9). Frivolous or vexatious pleadings will often share traits that identify them as such (paragraph 15). I note the following with reference to the pleadings of this plaintiff:
Multiple proceedings involving the same issues
Rambling unclarified discourse which makes the task of identifying the issues in the case difficult or impossible
Odd attachments
Care must always be taken to ensure that legitimate claims are not dismissed due to bad or vexatious drafting (paragraph 18).
A review under Rule 2.1.01 should therefore examine the pleadings to determine whether or not they have a legal basis or merit. I take this to include the situation where an otherwise legitimate claim may have no chance of success because it is barred by operation of a statute such as The Limitations Act.
The examination should be open to the possibility that bad drafting may disguise a genuine claim. However if the claim has no merit or no chance of success Rule 2.1.01 should be vigorously applied before the action wastes scarce court resources or causes a defendant needless expense.
In this case, the plaintiff’s complaints against the Federal Government, the Government of Ontario’s various ministries and the Legal clinic can be summarised as follows:
Against the Federal Department of Justice for failing to review Ontario Government bills prior to passage in the Ontario Legislature.
Against the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario for “being involved” in the Mental Health Act and failing to see that there was adequate training for those administering it.
Against the government of Ontario for the same failings as set out in 2) above.
As against the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for passing the Mental Health Act.
Against the Ministry of the Attorney General for not reviewing the Mental Health Act and preventing its passage.
Against the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care for incompetent management of the infrastructure created to administer the Act and for continuing to apply it even after being put on notice by the plaintiff that it was unconstitutional.
Against the same ministry for providing inadequately for low income citizens and not properly safeguarding the plaintiff’s rights on May 26, 2010.
Against the same ministry, the Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General for not ensuring that the presiding J.P. on the day in question had adequate training. And for allowing her to function as a judge.
Against the same ministry for failing to make video and audio recordings of the entire time the plaintiff was in care.
As against the Attorney General for failing to make amendments to the Mental Health Act after being put on notice by the plaintiff of its deficiencies.
Against an unspecified defendant for denying the plaintiff Legal Aid following the May 26, 2010 incident.
These are the sort of grandiose claims with no basis in law that characterize vexatious litigation. No reasonable person would expect to obtain the relief sought here. In addition the form of the claim itself bears a number of the characteristics enumerated in Gao paragraph 15 referred to above.
I have reviewed the statement of claim carefully, looking for some legitimate cause of action that it might contain disguised by poor pleading, particularly with the claim against the Legal Clinic. However I have been unsuccessful. The defendants are not directly responsible in law to a private citizen for such things as training mental health workers or justices of the peace. There are no facts provided to support the allegation that such workers or judicial officials are inadequately trained. No coherent narrative is provided that could support any of the claims. The damages sought are grandiose usually in the millions of dollars. The form of the statement of claim demonstrates a number of the characteristics highlighted by Myers J. at paragraph 15 of Gao referred to above. I would note the rambling discourse, the multiple attachments in the form of an affidavit filed in another action, misapprehension of the law, and failure to specify the facts supporting the wrongs alleged.
Together these faults prevent the plaintiff’s claim from being more than a vexatious list of complaints without substance or coherence.
The action suffers another fatal flaw. The only acts complained of which might have supported a proper claim occurred prior to or on May 10, 2010 more than six years before the commencement of the litigation. As such the claims are barred by operation of section 4 of The Limitations Act. This fact alone means that the action has no chance of proceeding.
I find therefore that the claim is vexatious and that the action has no possibility of proceeding to a successful conclusion. As such it is an abuse of the process of the Court and should not be allowed to continue. It is therefore dismissed as against all defendants.
The defendant Lake Country Community Legal Clinic has filed a statement of defence. If it wishes to seek costs against the plaintiff it may serve and submit written submissions within thirty days of the date of release of these reasons.
Justice T.M. Wood
Date: January 23, 2017