Court File and Parties

Court File No.: CV-18-574948 Date: 2019-06-26 Superior Court of Justice - Ontario

Re: Caplan v. Atas and numerous other proceedings involving Nadire Atas

Counsel: Nadire Atas self-represented Gary Caplan for the Moving Parties

Heard: In Writing

Before: D.L. Corbett J. (In Chambers, In Writing)

Case Management Endorsement

[1] Ms Atas disagrees with the form and content of orders prepared by Mr Caplan to implement dismissal orders made by this court at the case management conference of May 31, 2019.

[2] Ms Atas’ submissions are vexatious. Some are predicated on arguments that the orders ought not to have been made. The orders were made, and now is not the time to contest them: the only question is whether the draft orders properly reflect the orders that were made.

[3] Ms Atas’ arguments about the import of decisions of the Court of Appeal on motions to stay case management orders are irrelevant to the form of the orders made at the case management conference on May 31, 2019. Further, they are inherently vexatious: once again Ms Atas seems to argue that the court lacks jurisdiction or lawful authority to grant the orders, a position that is without merit. This absence of merit is unaffected by the fact, observed by Ms Atas, that six judges of the Court of Appeal have found that prior case management orders are interlocutory, a number likely to swell to nine such judges when Ms Atas’ intended motion to review the recent decision of Benotto J.A. is dismissed by a panel of the Court of Appeal. The fact that prior decisions of this court have been interlocutory case management orders does not preclude this court from granting final orders where there is a proper basis to do so – a proposition Ms Atas understands full well as a very experienced self-represented litigant.

[4] Ms Atas’ arguments that a number of proceedings dismissed on May 31st had been dismissed already is misplaced. That argument should have been made on May 31st. Indeed, Ms Atas was ordered to explain the status of her litigation back in the judgment of January 3, 2018, a direction that she resisted performing. When she did finally comply with the court’s directions, she did not advise that these proceedings had been dismissed already. When this issue arose at the case management conference on May 31st, she did not provide this information, even when the issue was raised in connection with another proceeding. It is only now that the court has dealt with these old proceedings, some seventeen months after she was directed to provide the information necessary for the court to move forward with these cases, that she comes forward claiming that the matters have been dismissed already: and Ms Atas does so without providing any supporting documentation. I will not put the responding parties to the expense and delay of conducting due diligence on Ms Atas’ late information now: the orders will issue as granted on May 31st. If it turns out that any of the actions had been dismissed previously, and if any party considers that this raises an issue that has any consequences for the parties and ongoing case management, those issues can be raised at a future case management conference.

[5] All of this is consistent with Ms Atas’ consistent pattern of making even the most routine of procedural matters as cumbersome and unwieldy as possible; the court will not sanction this behavior by returning now to matters that were decided on May 31st.

[6] In respect to the orders that Ms Atas addresses in terms of form and content, she has done nothing to facilitate the court’s review of her concerns. She has attached draft orders to her submission, but has not identified the points of departure from Mr Caplan’s draft orders, nor has she provided explanations for the changes she seeks. The court will not consider her submissions made in this way.

[7] If Ms Atas has concerns about the form and content of any of the draft orders, she may provide her own draft orders, blacklined to show the changes she proposes to the drafts provided by Mr Caplan, with explanations or her disagreements where those explanations are not evident simply on a reading of the proposed changes. She shall provide these by 5 pm, July 2, 2019. The court will then settle the orders on the basis of the materials provided by July 2nd. As explained above, the court will not entertain arguments about whether the orders ought to have been made; those arguments were heard and decided on May 31st and may not be revisited during the process of settling the orders.

[8] This is a tight deadline, but is an indulgence for Ms Atas: she was to have provided these submissions already, but rather than foreclosing her from raising proper concerns about the form and content of the orders, the court will accord her another chance to do so.

D.L. Corbett J. Date: June 26, 2019