So I'm going to post each of the decisions as separate entries with one additional posting. I’m going to tell the story of a flamboyant aggressive businessman, heavily involved in real estate, who became a right-wing populist politician. He took complete control of a major political party and was swept into office by his adoring acolytes but, because of his myriad personal flaws and his overwhelming hubris, crashed in humiliating defeat after only a single term.
What’s the relevance of a modern Greek tragedy to a Canadian lawsuit on aircraft contrails (or chemtrails as the plaintiff called them)? You'll have to wait until Pelletier 2020 to find out!
So, on to Pelletier 2016.
Dan Pelletier was a man with a dream, a dream of a pure crystal sky with no aircraft contrails spraying vile poisons over innocent unsuspecting Canadians. However, in stark contrast to the multitudes of keyboard warriors who got detoured into FaceBook rabbit-holes and never re-surfaced, he took action! He sued the government at the Federal court of Canada on behalf of all Canadians, a class-action lawsuit that included even that unsuspecting victim of governmental chemical warfare against it's own populace, Burnaby49!
The hearing started well with this Statement of Claim firing the opening gun;
Pelletier v. Canada[2] The Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim was filed on March 11, 2016 as a “Proposed Class Proceeding” within the meaning of part 5.1 of the Rules. The Plaintiff is seeking various declaratory and injunctive relief as well as compensatory damages against the Federal Crown in relation to the discharge of allegedly “trails of white particulate like matter” comprised of toxic “minute particles” (Arial Discharges) into Canadian airspace which, by dissipating in lower altitudes, affect the environment, including the air he and his family, as well as potential members of the Proposed Class, breathe.
[3] The Plaintiff alleges that Aerial Discharges can easily be absorbed by the human body and the environment and are therefore dangerous to both. He blames the Federal Crown and/or its agents or instrumentalities for performing Aerial Discharges over Canadian air space while knowing - or supposed to be knowing - that they are dangerous. The Plaintiff claims that the liability of the Federal Crown is engaged as its actions – or inactions – with respect to Arial Discharges contravene the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, SC 1999, c 33 [CEPA] as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [the Charter], amount to negligence and trespass and impede on the quiet enjoyment of his property and that of the potential members of the Proposed Class.
2016 FC 1356
http://canlii.ca/t/gw1g9
In Canada a Statement of Claim is the document presented to the court and the defendant by the plaintiff to give the legal and factual basis for a civil lawsuit. Statements of claim start the legal proceedings and set out the basis on which the plaintiff is taking legal action by providing details of the dispute including the ‘pleadings', the facts the plaintiff will be relying on to his case. The details that Pelletier is relying on to support the pleadings are called particulars. Together the pleadings and particulars lay out what facts are going to be tested in court and confine the scope of the case to just those facts included in the Statement of Claim. Essentially the Statement of Claim is the blueprint for the lawsuit, giving details why the plaintiff has started proceedings, the law supporting his position and showing the defendant the extent of the claimed case against him. The Statement of Claim also specifies the remedy the plaintiff is requesting. Pelletier's requested remedy was approval of a class action to obtain "various declaratory and injunctive relief as well as compensatory damages against the Federal Crown".
However the defense was less than impressed by Pelletier's Statement of Claim and moved that it be struck out, in other words tossed out by the court without allowing the case to proceed.
In his review of the motion to strike the trial judge first pointed out the minimum requirements that a Statement of Claim must meet to be accepted by the court. I'll give short quotes parsed of legal citations;[4] As indicated previously, the Defendant moves to strike out the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim . It contends that the causes of action alleged by the Plaintiff either do not exist at law or are unaccompanied by the necessary material facts to disclose a cause of action. It further contends that the Applicant’s claim is scandalous, frivolous and vexatious as it is so replete with vague assertions and conclusions and is so devoid of factual material that it remains impossible to meaningfully plead a defence.
The test applicable on a motion to strike for not disclosing a reasonable cause of action is well known: a claim will only be struck if it is plain and obvious, assuming the facts pleaded to be true, that the pleading discloses no reasonable cause of action or, put it another way, that it has no reasonable prospect of success
As is well-settled too, no evidence outside the pleadings may be considered on such motions and although allegations that are capable of being proven must be taken as true, the same does not apply to pleadings which are based on assumptions and speculation and to those that are incapable of proof
In this regard, while the Statement of Claim must be read as generously as possible with a view to accommodating any inadequacies due to drafting deficiencies . . . . ), it is incumbent on the claimant to clearly plead the facts at the basis of its claim
Recently, in dismissing the appeal of a Judgment of this Court granting a motion to strike, the Federal Court of Appeal stressed the fundamental importance to the trial process that a claimant “plead material facts in sufficient detail to support the claim and relief sought”
Essentially the plaintiff has to clear two hurdles. He must make the Statement of Claim legally precise enough that the defendant knows, as a matter of law, the case brought against him and he must provide facts (evidence) to prove this case or at least support the accusations. The judge decided that Pelletier fell abysmally short of even the minimum allowable standards to meet these requirements;The latter part of this requirement – sufficient material facts – is the foundation of a proper pleading. If a court allowed parties to plead bald allegations of fact, or mere conclusory statements of law, the pleadings would fail to perform their role in identifying the issues. The proper pleading of a Statement of Claim is necessary for a defendant to prepare a statement of defence. Material facts frame the discovery process and allow counsel to advise their clients, to prepare their case and to map a trial strategy. Importantly, the pleadings establish the parameters of relevancy of evidence at discovery and trial.
In other words, like the current Republican attacks on the integrity of American voting system, Pelletier made myriad wild accusations against the government without providing any evidence to back them up. As the court wrote;[15] I agree with the Defendant that the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim only consists of bald allegations and mere conclusory statements of law and falls well short, as a result, of pleading with sufficient detail the constituent elements of each cause of action raised. In particular, it fails to tell the Defendant “who, when, where, how and what gave rise to its liability” and to define the issues with sufficient precision to make the trial process both manageable and fair (Mancuso at paras 18-19).
[16] The allegations of statute and Charter infringement are as bald, general and vague as they can be: they (i) do not specify which Charter rights or which provision(s) of the CEPA have been infringed; (ii) do not tell the Defendant who, how and what gave rise to the alleged infringement; (iii) remain vague as to where and when exactly the alleged infringement took place; (iv) do not tell the Defendant in what way the Federal Crown or its agents and/or instrumentalities “perform” Arial Discharges in Canadian airspace so as to trigger the application of the CEPA and the Charter; and (v) are silent on the identity of the Federal Crown’s agents and/or instrumentalities which are allegedly infringing the CEPA and the Charter.
[17] As indicated previously, there are no separate rules of pleadings for Charter cases. The requirement of material facts applies in the same way it does for other causes of actions (Mancuso, at para 21). In Mancuso, in what was otherwise found to be inadequate pleadings, there was at least reference to the Charter provisions that had been allegedly infringed. Again, here, there is no such reference. With respect to the alleged breach of the CEPA not only is the Plaintiff’s pleading devoid of any supporting material facts but that particular claim is bound to fail as it is now firmly established that no action lies against a public authority for negligent breach of statute (Holland v Saskatchewan, 2008 SCC 42 (CanLII), [2008] 2 SCR 551, at para 8-9).
[18] The same pleading deficiencies affect the common law causes of action raised by the Plaintiff, which are based on the exact same bald allegations and conclusory statements of law. As stated in Mancuso, a properly pleaded tort claim “identifies the particular nominate tort alleged and sets out the material facts needed to satisfy the elements of that tort” (Mancuso, at para 26). The essential elements of the tort of negligence include a duty of care, a specific breach of that duty, a causal connection between the breach of the duty and the injury, and an actual loss. A Statement of Claim need therefore to include sufficient facts providing details about each of these elements (Sivak, at para 26).
With that background the judge dropped the hammer on Pelletier's sad, sad excuse for a lawsuit;[20] As the Defendant correctly points out, the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim merely recites the steps in a generic negligence analysis: it does not identify the individuals, group of individuals or organizational branch involved in the alleged negligent conduct, let alone, as indicated previously, the Crown agents and/or instrumentalities allegedly responsible for such conduct; it does not provide either any type of details of the alleged negligent conduct itself - the “performance of Arial Discharges” - as it does not tell anything about the who, how and what gave rise to the Defendant’s liability in this regard or about the link between the Federal Crown, its agents and/or instrumentalities and the aircrafts that are actually discharging the Arial Discharges; also, it is vague as to when and where such conduct may have occurred to a point where it does not give fair notice to the Defendant of the case to be met.
[21] All of this equally applies to the Plaintiff’s claim for nuisance and trespass. There are no supporting material facts to establish a non-trivial, substantial and unreasonable interference with the use or enjoyment of the Plaintiff’s land due to the alleged performance of Arial Discharges (Antrim Truck Center Ltd v Ontario (Transportation), 2013 SCC 13 (CanLII), [2013] 1 SCR 594 at para 19). There are no such facts either capable of establishing a claim for trespass, that is a direct and physical intrusion onto land in possession of the Plaintiff resulting from the alleged misconduct. In particular, the Plaintiff has failed in both instances to plead material facts capable of establishing the nature of the interference or intrusion.
As an aside I'll note that Kisikawpimootewin v Canada was a particular favorite of our long gone but not forgotten Quatloos member and frequent contributor, The Northern Raider of Sovereign Commerce, Hilfskreuzer Möwe. Perhaps he was just taken by the name. He wrote about it here;[22] For these reasons, I find that the Plaintiff has failed to plead facts in sufficient details to support the claim and relief sought. Both the Defendant and the Court are left to speculate as to what might support, from a material factual standpoint, the causes of action raised by the Plaintiff (Mancuso at para 16). As the Supreme Court of Canada stated in Imperial Tobacco, at paragraph 22, “[t]he facts pleaded are the firm basis upon which the possibility of success of the claim must be evaluated. If they are not pleaded, the exercise cannot be properly conducted”. That is the case here.
[23] The Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim simply does not meet the minimum threshold of an adequate pleading. In other words, in its current configuration, it fails to disclose the constituent elements of each cause of action and to define the issues with sufficient precision to make the pre-trial and trial proceedings both manageable and fair. In sum, it does not provide the essential facts grounding the causes of action. As we have seen, this is sufficient basis to strike the Plaintiff’s claim as not disclosing a reasonable cause of action. It is also sufficient basis to strike the Plaintiff’s claim as being “scandalous, frivolous or vexatious” within the meaning of Rule 221(1)(c) of the Rules since a pleading replete with bare allegations and mere conclusory statements of law, as is the case here, will normally also amount to a scandalous, frivolous or vexatious pleading (Kisikawpimootewin v Canada, 2004 FC 1426 at para 9; Ceminchuk v Canada, [1995] FCJ No 914 at para 10).
http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtop ... 6&p=275965
But, back in the contrail world, all was not lost! The judge, being an old softie at heart, didn't totally slam the door on Pelletier. While he struck the Statement of Claim he allowed Pelletier the opportunity to revise the Statement of Claim and bring it back to court for another review to see if it could meet the bare minimum standard needed for the case to continue.
And Dan Pelletier took him up on it and tried again in 2018, so on to round 2![29] Is the Plaintiff’s Statement of Claim in the present case “beyond redemption” as was the case in Baird FC? I do not believe so. Since the power to strike must be used with care (Imperial Tobacco, at para21), I would allow the Plaintiff the opportunity to attempt to salvage his pleading by amending it within 40 days of the date of this Order, the Christmas Recess within the meaning of rule 2 of the Rules, being included in the computation of that delay