Date: 19990719
Docket: T-426-99
BETWEEN:
DAVID IAIN TENCH
Plaintiff
- and -
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
Defendant
REASONS FOR ORDER
REED J.
[1] The defendant brings a motion to strike the plaintiff"s Statement of Claim on a number of grounds. These are: it does not conform to the requirements of pleadings as set out in the Federal Court Rules, 1998 ; it discloses no reasonable cause of action; it is scandalous, frivolous or vexatious; it will embarrass the fair trial of the action; it is an abuse of process.
[2] The motion was scheduled to be heard on Monday, July 12, 1999, in Halifax. On Friday, July 9, the plaintiff who is self-represented filed a Re-Amended Statement of Claim. On the calling of the motion on Monday, July 12, both the plaintiff and counsel for the defendant agreed the subject of the motion should be this Re-Amended Statement of Claim.
[3] The plaintiff"s claim, in part, is for an order setting aside a Conciliation Agreement and Release that he signed on March 27, 1997, consequent on a complaint he had filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Release reads in part:
| I ... do hereby remise, release and forever discharge the Correctional Services of Canada and its servants, employees and agents from any and all manner of actions, causes of actions, claims and demands of any and every kind and nature whatsoever, at law or in equity, or under any statute, for or by reason of or in any way arising out of or connected with my employment as a correctional officer in the Ontario Region of the Correctional Services of Canada. |
[4] The Re-Amended Statement of Claim is not a proper pleading. It is confused, prolix, and in many places incoherent. I will quote some of the paragraphs as illustration:
| ... |
| 5. The Defendant was unjustly enriched as evidenced through the provisions within the Conciliation Agreement. |
| 6. That some of the evidence to be relied upon to show that the Defendant was unjustly enriched that would warrant the Release being voided is contained within the Release, and the Release itself. |
| 7. That the Release affords the Defendant much more protection that it should given the specificity of the issues that gave rise to its inception. |
| 8. That the Release constitutes unjust enrichment in its redundancy, given that a similar proviso exists within the Conciliation Agreement itself, and would be absolutely redundant, but for the fact that the proviso within the Conciliation Agreement is appropriate to the specificity of the issues. |
| ... |
| 23. Reliance upon established case law, wherein damages for lost income are substantially higher than the damages for lost income received by the Plaintiff, which the Plaintiff submits, is additional evidence of unjust enrichment. (Cooper v. Miller [1994]). |
| 24. That yet still further evidence of need arises in relation to the Plaintiff"s fear for his life and the lives of his family, when the abuses of the Defendants reached a criminal crescendo, as marked by the cutting of the Plaintiff"s automobile fuel lines (by the exhaust tailpipe, which is attempted murder since the hot tailpipe and the spray of gasoline from the gas lines is a combustible mixture), and the smashing of the Plaintiff"s front windshield, the latter of which definitely occurred and the former probably occurred while the Plaintiff had his cars (different cars) parked in the staff parking lot. |
[5] The plaintiff talks about undue influence in one paragraph, unjust enrichment in another and tortious liability in a third. He seeks to set aside a Release that was consequent upon a Human Rights complaint, the result of which would be to have that complaint re-opened and perhaps decided adversely to his interests. He includes claims relating to his request for a disability priority, which is the subject of a separate judicial review application in T-2235-98.
[6] He mixes challenges to the Canadian Human Rights Commission decision with claims that the defendant committed acts of "intentional tort, and misfeasant and nonfeasant negligence".
[7] Pleadings must contain a precise statement of material facts that are set out in a sufficiently clear, organized and concise form to enable a defendant to know the cause or causes of action that are alleged and to respond to them. In Murray v. Public Service Commission et al. (1978), 21 N.R. 230, the Federal Court of Appeal noted that a statement of claim must sufficiently reveal:
| ...the facts on which the Plaintiff bases his cause of action to make it possible for the Defendant to answer it or for a Court to regulate the proceedings in the action [or it is] fundamentally 'vexatious' within the legal sense of the word. |
[8] The plaintiff is self-represented and in such cases, the Court allows considerable latitude when assessing pleadings. Nevertheless in this case the pleading is so prolix and confused that it must be struck. It does not meet the minimum requirements of proper pleading. An Order will be issued accordingly.
(Sgd.) "B. Reed"
Judge
OTTAWA, Ontario