Monday, October 7, 2013

The Mother of All Lawsuits

On several occasions I've told you how I messed with my adversaries by suing them not for kicking me out of University, but for kicking me out of my teaching practicum. Well, now the other shoe has dropped. Just before the start of my criminal trial, I served opposing counsel with what I am calling the Mother of All Lawsuits. You can read the Statement of Claim, all 132 paragraphs of it, online here.

I have taken some flak over the length of the Statement of Claim, but I think I've done it right. It's a long and involved claim, and it needs to be pleaded very carefully. What I'm going to do today is break it down by paragraphs to explain why I've pleaded it as a have.

But before I get to that I should talk about the stroke-throughs and underlines. The claim was originally filed on April 29th. Subsequently I had a situation where I had filed a suit against Professor Bush for slander, and opposing counsel had filed a Motion to Strike. I wasn't too worried about this until I started preparing my response, and I was pretty horrified to learn how hard it is to win a case for slander. Part of this is because slander is verbal as opposed to libel which is written, and the law requires you to be very exact with regard to the words pleaded. That's almost impossible in a slander case. But along the way, I learned some things about the particular difficulties associated with pleading any kind of defamation action, and I realized that I was vulnerable not only on the Bush case, but on the present case, the one against the University for kicking me out of the program. That's when I rewrote my claim completely. The underlines and stroke-throughs reflect those amendments, as required by the Queen's Bench rules. So if you're interested and sufficiently motivated, you can go through it and compare the "before" and "after" versions. I think the present version is much more robust, and in a way I have Professor Bush to thank for that.

The other major change between the spring and the fall was I decided to add a Charter claim for Freedom of Expression. You know, professors are always giving students bad marks because the student argues for a different point of view than the professor wants to hear. But it's almost impossible to convert that into a claim for damages under Freedom of Expression. Almost but not quite. If anyone can do it, I think I can. And I'm prepared to argue it  through to the bitter end, and go down fighting if necessary. It should be interesting.

Most of the remaining changes were with regard to just the overall length. I tried to cut the background narrative down to the bare minimum. Regardless, it still came to 47 paragraphs. Oh, there was one more thing: I had to drop the complaint of Conspiracy to Injure. I'm not entirely happy about this. The problem is that according to case law, you can't "tack on" a claim of Conspiracy to what is otherwise a case of defamation. It's a general rule that I felt shouldn't apply to my particular case, but after a careful review, I decided I had put enough into my claim without giving myself the additional burden of overcoming one more obstacle. So I took it out; and with it, I had to drop Dean of Education John Anchan as one of the defendants.

Which brings us to the claim. Let's go through it by paragraph and see what it consists of.

Paragraph 1: This is where you state that you are asking for damages.

Paras. 2-10: This is where I name the defendants.

Paras. 11-58: This is where I give the factual background. And then I get into what I am claiming for. Actually, at this point, we can let my Statement of Claim speak for itself:

The Plaintiff’s Claims
59.       The Plaintiff claims that in their written complaints against the Plaintiff, the defendants Bell, Cantor and Metz did maliciously defame and libel the Plaintiff, as set out in paras. 65-75 below.
60.       Further, or in the alternative, the Plaintiff claims that in fostering and prosecuting the said written complaints and failing to allow the Plaintiff adequate opportunity to respond to the allegations against him, the University did variously engage in a conspiracy to injure, an intentional breach of duty of care, a breach of contract and a denial of due process as set out in paras  76-97  below.
61.      The Plaintiff claims that in implementing the trespassing order against the Plaintiff, the University and Colin Russell did maliciously defame the plaintiff as set out in paras. 98-106 below.
62.       The Plaintiff claims that insofar as the defendants actions were motivated by a belief that the plaintiff suffered from a mental disability, that they violated his Charter Rights as set out in paras 107-111  below.
63.       The plaintiff claims that in her written complaint against the plaintiff, the defendant JANE DOE did maliciously defame and libel the plaintiff, as set out in paras. 112-117 below.
64.    The Plaintiff claims that insofar as the defendants’ actions were motivated by a desire to silence the Plaintiff’s right to express his opinions, that they violated his Charter Rights as set out in paras 118-131 below.

And that's it. Six separate causes of action, all rolled up in one big Statement of Claim. When we return, we'll have more to say about the various claims.

13 comments:

  1. the good thing about representing yourself is that YOU can say whatever you want in court (within guidelines of course) whereas if a client has a "mouthpiece" (represented by attorney) the client has to shut up.

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  2. Interesting. And all this because you couldn't shut up in class and they threw you out. I guess just shutting up and learning the material presented was asking to much eh?

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    1. Anonymous, it is not helpful for you to post this on my blog. What I need are former classmates, people who were actually witnesses, to come forward and confirm that I was kicked out for the reasons you stated.

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    2. Goodness. My comments don't serve you. Pity that, Marty.

      Can you imagine, Marty, I, as a person paying taxes, due to the fact that I subjected myself to the awful concept of doing what was necessary to find gainful employment, might think that your legal actions, which are costing taxpayers thousands of dollars, might not be serving me very well? Had you shut up and learned something - which is your duty as student - I wouldn't be paying extra in my tax bill to support your stupid actions.

      Do you realize this action is simply caused by your arrogant supposition that you know better than trained professors what and how things should be taught.

      Why you couldn't, with some humility, study and learn to teach, and then work from within is beyond me. Now you are unemployable, well deservedly, I suggest, but unemployable nonetheless, and you are a burden on society, and will remain so until you manage to learn something.

      So, Marty, your damn fool lawsuits don't serve me either. I suppose we'd be about even then, eh?

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  3. Just a minor comment - not intended as a critique or anything of that sort - but, when errors come up in typing up a statement like this, Marty, how are they handled once the powers that be look them over?

    For example, minor typos like "teaching bloc" rather than "teaching block". And what about errors in dates? For instance, points 14 and 15 in the Claim section indicate meetings that took place in October and November of (I'm assuming) the same calendar year, given the context of those meetings and the participants, but the October meeting was written to have occurred in 2012 while the November meeting was written to have occurred in 2011. Do you, as the writer of the statement of claim, have the chance to correct those, or is there a chance that they can be leveraged against you?

    As I said, this is just a general question out of curiosity. I don't hope to have to write such a statement of claim, myself, but I'm wondering what happens when such errors come up.

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    1. (or even something like saying JANE DOE was "unknown to the defendant" rather than "unknown to the plaintiff").

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  4. As far as I know, those kinds of errors are never fatal. There is opportunity to amend your statement of claim at any stage of the game, and obvious errors like those are not generally opposed. Of course, with the lawyers I'm dealing with on the other side, EVERYTHING gets opposed. But that can end up biting them in the ass, if the judge finds I was forced to argue a motion that should have been conceded from the get-go.

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  5. I get the sickening feeling you regard all of this "back and forth" as sport, with your stupid Venn diagrams and keeping score. You are wasting your own life, time, other people's time and energy and racking up huge costs for what? To prove what? It's like a kid in the sandbox saying "Mine!" If this isn't a vexatious lawsuit, I don't know what would qualify. You admit you pushed your way into someone's home, you admit you argued with instructors, you admit other students complained about you. Why didn't you just stop? Why not go somewhere else and transfer your credits, if you have any? You were a quirky tv character whose fame and perhaps family support for this lawsuit, have gone to your overblown head. Sickening trail of destruction that will prevent any school administration from ever hiring you. Why not take the high road, if you've EVER travelled it, and drop the charges, get on with your life, and start afresh with something more productive as your mid-life crisis? Is this your identity now? I think you should see a shrink and work out your issues in a private forum, not in public. Enough. Teach thyself first. I sure wouldn't want my kids in your class. Ever. Would your classmate who is goading you on really want to see his/her child in your class for a year, where you set your own rules, leave out what you don't agree with in the curriculum or don't know how to teach well? Pick another path while you can. There's still time to do the right thing. This is masterbation in public.

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    1. Oh come on now Fritz. EVERYONE liked the Venn Diagram, even Ms. Mulholland.

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  6. Hey Marty, I don't think that was Fritz commenting on the Venn diagrams, but I'm glad to see you take things calmly. You might consider dropping the suits to minimize time and money wasted all around, no?

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    1. Not while I'm still enjoying the public masterbation.

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  7. pun on the word "Master" or just a spelling error?

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