Author Archives: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

About Jonnette Watson Hamilton

B.A. (Alta.), LL.B. (Dal.), LL.M. (Col.). Professor Emerita. Please click here for more information.

Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

By: Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

Case Commented On: Quebec (Attorney General) v A, 2013 SCC 5 (case summary available here)

On May 13, 2013, we led the Faculty of Law’s first roundtable discussion of the summer on the Supreme Court’s most recent equality rights decision, Quebec (Attorney General) v A. Participants included faculty members, researchers from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre and Alberta Law Reform Institute, and a number of JD and graduate students. Coincidentally, a virtual roundtable on the case is also ongoing at the moment, moderated by Sonia Lawrence, Director of Osgoode Hall’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies (IFLS), with participation from law profs Robert Leckey, Hester Lessard, Bruce Ryder, and Margot Young. Many of the issues raised in the IFLS discussion were also debated in our roundtable.

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Do Covenants to Compensate for Designation as an Historical Resource Run with the Land?

PDF version: Do Covenants to Compensate for Designation as an Historical Resource Run with the Land?

Case considered: Equitable Trust Company v Lougheed Block Inc, 2013 ABQB 209.

The foreclosure proceedings taken with respect to the historic Lougheed Building at 604 – 1 Street S.W. in Calgary have generated a number of legal controversies. I have previously blogged on interest issues in the “Perennial Problem of Section 8 of the Interest Act” and on security deposits matters in “Who Bears the Loss for Converted Security Deposits?” This latest judgment — a decision of Mr. Justice Paul R. Jeffrey — concerns compensation paid by the City of Calgary for the decrease in the value of the building when it was designated an “historical resource” under the Historical Resources Act, RSA 2000, c H-9. A Lougheed Building Rehabilitation Incentive Agreement dated September 2006 provided that total compensation would be $3,400,000 and it would be paid in fourteen annual installments of $227,000 each and a final fifteenth payment of $222,000.  The question was who was to receive the balance of the annual installments. Would it be The Lougheed Block Inc (LBI), the owner of the building who entered into the Incentives Agreement with the City and did the required rehabilitation work? Or would it be 604 – 1st Street S.W. Inc (604), the purchaser on the judicial sale after LBI defaulted on their mortgage with Equitable Trust Company and Equitable Trust foreclosed. The outcome depended on the answers to one property issue and one (far less interesting) contract issue.

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Consequences of being an OPCA Litigant?

PDF version: Consequences of being an OPCA Litigant?

Case commented on: ANB v Hancock, 2013 ABQB 97.

ANB v Hancock is Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke’s second written judgment about an Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) litigant. As summarized by Justice Rooke in ANB (at para 15), “OPCA concepts are legally incorrect schemes marketed and promoted by a collection of conmen [“OPCA gurus”] that claim to allow a person to avoid or impose legal obligation outside of recognized legal processes.” These concepts and schemes are all associated with OPCA indicia, which are “unusual motifs that are unique to or strongly associated with OPCA concepts and schemes” (at para 16). ANB builds upon Justice Rooke’s ground-breaking decision in Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571. Like Meads, ANB arose in the family law context, although Meads arose out of a divorce and matrimonial property action commenced by Mrs. Meads, and ANB arose from the seizure of A.N.B.’s two children by Alberta Family Services and a subsequent order granting permanent guardianship of the children to the province. ANB both applies and extends Meads. It applies it by following through on some principles set out in Meads, including the provision of an explanation of court costs, characterized in Meads (at paras 637-638) as “a crucial aspect in the ‘limited duty’ a judge owes to these self?represented litigants.” It extends Meads by allowing Crown counsel to hide their identities in the face of conduct by A.N.B. which is the subject of criminal charges.

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A Rather Quick Response to a Rather Typical Vexatious Litigant

PDF version: A Rather Quick Response to a Rather Typical Vexatious Litigant

Case commented on: Onischuk v Alberta, 2013 ABQB 89.

The prominent September 2012 decision of Court of Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke in Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, established a continuum of litigants, ranging from commonly encountered self-represented litigants, to infrequently encountered and almost always self-represented vexatious litigants, through to the highly unusual organized pseudolegal commercial argument (OPCA) litigant who is usually self-represented. Justice Rooke’s decision in Onischuk v Alberta concerns a litigant who appears to fit in the middle of that continuum, a rather typical vexatious litigant, although perhaps found to be so more quickly than has been the usual case. It is those two matters — typicality and velocity — that I focus on in this post.

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What has Meads v Meads wrought?

PDF version: What has Meads v Meads wrought?

Cases commented on: R v Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160 (CanLII); R v Tyskerud, 2013 BCPC 27 (CanLII); Cassa v The Queen, 2013 TCC 43 (CanLII); R v Martin, 2012 NSPC 115 (CanLII); R v Lavin, 2013 ONCJ 6 (QL); Scotia Mortgage Corporation v Gutierrez, 2012 ABQB 683 (CanLII); Stancer (Re), 2012 BCSC 1533 (CanLII); Grattan (Re), 2012 NBQB 332, [2012] NBJ No 353 (QL).

I.          Introduction

Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke’s decision in Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571 (CanLII) — one of CanLII’s Top Ten Cases of 2012 — established a category of vexatious litigants that he called “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument” (OPCA) litigants. OPCA litigants “employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ … to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals” (Meads at para 1). Although those techniques and arguments are varied, the essence of the OPCA litigants’ position is that they deny the authority of the state and the courts. Both of us have commented on the Meads case previously on ABlawg: see “The Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) Litigant Case” and “The Top Ten Canadian Legal Ethics Stories – 2012”. What we want to look at in this post is the use that has been made of Meads in the intervening six months. We will also consider the extent to which OPCA and similar litigants may influence judges to embrace styles of judgment that are disrespectful of the parties appearing before them. The post will touch on the ethical problems created when judges embrace “literary flourishes” and “dry wit” in their decisions (Katie Daubs, “Legal Decision with literary flourish and dry wit making the round…” Toronto Star, March 29, 2013).

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