Case information

Civil Procedure — Abuse of process — Collateral attack — Vexatious litigant proceedings — Applications judge issuing orders declaring applicant to be vexatious litigant, staying ongoing proceedings, and imposing restrictions on future proceedings — Court of Appeal upholding orders — Whether scope and proper application of doctrines of collateral attack and abuse of process should be clarified — Whether doctrines were improperly applied so as to block claims that have never been determined in court, with extremely prejudicial results — Whether language used by courts when considering collateral attack and abuse of process is vague and imprecise — Whether there is a need for better articulated, more precise test — Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990 c. C.43, s. 140.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicant, Robert Glegg, and his (now) ex-wife were married in 1998 and had one child together, born in 1999 — “O.G.”. The couple separated in 2001, divorced in 2002, and entered into a shared custody arrangement for O.G. In 2014, Mr. Glegg obtained an order granting him sole custody on an interim basis. In 2016, O.G. sought and obtained a declaration to withdraw from the parental control of her father, and to seek child support from him. Since this declaration, Mr. Glegg brought several unsuccessful lawsuits and other legal proceedings against O.G.’s mother, against family friends who assisted O.G. and her mother (the respondents Hazel Flores and Armando Flores — the “Flores respondents”), and against the legal aid clinic (and its staff members) that represented O.G. in her emancipation proceedings (the respondents Justice for Children and Youth, Jesse Mark, Mary Birdsell and Emily Chan — the “JFCY respondents”). The Flores respondents and the JFCY respondents each brought separate applications to have Mr. Glegg declared a vexatious litigant. An applications judge declared Mr. Glegg to be a vexatious litigant, stayed his current ongoing proceedings, and prohibited him from commencing new proceedings without leave of the court. The Court of Appeal unanimously upheld these orders.