Endorsement

Court File No.: CV-24-3645
Date: 2025-03-10
Superior Court of Justice – Ontario

Re: Shaukat Ali, Plaintiff
And: Sue Ceballo, Defendant

Before: M.T. Doi
Counsel:
Shaukat Ali, self-represented Plaintiff
Michelle Isenstein, for the Defendant

Heard: March 10, 2025 (in writing)

Introduction

This motion was referred to me by the registrar’s office under rule 2.1.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, RRO 1990, Reg. 194, after a request was received from defendant’s counsel to have the action dismissed for not pleading a cause of action and appearing on its face to be frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process of the court.

Background

By Endorsement dated October 17, 2024, I noted that the action may be frivolous, vexatious, or abusive and called on the plaintiff to provide written submissions as to why the claim should not be dismissed. The time for submissions has passed without the plaintiff making any.

Analysis

For the reasons that follow, I find that the action is frivolous and should be dismissed without costs.

Under rule 2.1.01, the court may stay or dismiss a proceeding that appears on its face to be frivolous, vexatious, or otherwise an abuse of the process of the court. Rule 2.1 is interpreted and applied robustly so a motion judge may effectively exercise their gatekeeping function to dismiss litigation that is clearly frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of process: Scaduto v. The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2015 ONCA 733 at para 8, leave to appeal refused. Rule 2.1 is not applied to close calls, but is limited 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 for resorting to this attenuated process: Scaduto at paras 8-9; Sumner v. Ottawa (Police Services), 2023 ONCA 140 at para 9; Wu v. Toronto (City), 2024 ONCA 810 at para 3.

A motion under rule 2.1 focuses on the pleadings and any submissions by the parties under the rule. No evidence is submitted on a rule 2.1 motion: Scaduto at paras 9 and 11-12.

A frivolous proceeding lacks a legal basis or legal merit, or is brought without reasonable grounds and readily recognizable as devoid of merit with little to no realistic prospect of success: Rahman v. Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, 2025 ONSC 1210 at para 6; Cummings v. Martin, 2025 ONSC 1119 at para 6; Buehlmann-Miyake v. Buhlmann, 2025 ONCA 131 at para 3; Gill v. MacIver, 2023 ONCA 776 at para 3; Lavallee v. Isak, 2022 ONCA 290 at para 19.

Neither opposing parties nor the court should be required to devote scarce resources to clearly frivolous proceedings as they take time away from other more meritorious cases: Rahman at para 7. Rule 2.1 serves an important role in screening out frivolous claims that lack merit: Kokic v. Johnson, 2025 ONCA 4 at para 6; Buehlmann-Miyake at para 3.

Decision

I find that the statement of claim is clearly frivolous as it does not articulate a basis for a legally recognized claim against the defendant. Among other things, the claim refers to an incident at the Brampton Courthouse on April 23, 2024 when the plaintiff suffered a heart attack, indicates that the plaintiff is separated from children, and refers to “corrupt Canadian police constables” in relation to parenting and religious freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but without articulating a legally recognizable or perceptible claim against the defendant. Much of the statement of claim is conclusory by providing discourse or argument instead of an account of facts that could support a legal claim. Having reviewed the statement of claim in the broadest and least-critical manner, and with generous allowances for drafting imprecisions, I find that it does not assert a cause of action or plead material facts to support any discernable claim for damages or other relief against the defendant. The plaintiff did not provide any submissions to explain why the action should proceed after an opportunity was given to make submissions.

Respectfully, I find that the statement of claim is clearly frivolous as it has no legal basis, merit or reasonable grounds. This is not a close call. I am satisfied that the statement of claim will inevitably fail for lacking reasonable grounds on its face.

For these reasons, the action is dismissed under rule 2.1.01 without costs.

Date: March 10, 2025
M.T. Doi