Canada to firmly re-assess its status as a British colony

[crazy canuck]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

[HVC]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

So a crazy person can keep pestering me and making me pay legal fees? can you file a restraining order of sorts to keep from being harrassed by these wacky suits?

[Barrister]

Wow you lawyers can make any thread boring.

Hey, I could write a novel about some of my old war stories - and sometimes I think I should.

After all, I've had clients sued by Martians, and others by Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. The former was a nutcase (or perhaps a Martian), but the latter was a quite serious matter about real money ...

I prosecuted his father once.

[Barrister]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

So a crazy person can keep pestering me and making me pay legal fees? can you file a restraining order of sorts to keep from being harrassed by these wacky suits?

Yes.  You can have someone declared a "vexatious litigant" and prohibited from filing further court applications.

These kind of nuisance lawsuits are common enough though (as are lawsuite for patently ridiculous amount of money) that they're not really that interesting to tell stories about.  As you can tell that all three of us have dealt with them.

[Malthus]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

So a crazy person can keep pestering me and making me pay legal fees? can you file a restraining order of sorts to keep from being harrassed by these wacky suits?

You can have a crazy person declared a vexatious litigant (then their court filings have to be pre-approved).

[Valmy]

I prosecuted his father once.

Was King Solomon the defense attorney?

[grumbler]

After all, I've had clients sued by Martians...

I seem to recall that story.  Didn't the judge dismiss on the grounds that, if the plaintiff were correct, he had no grounds, as a Martian, to sue in that court?

[Barrister]

I prosecuted his father once.

Was King Solomon the defense attorney?

I felt for his defence lawyer actually.  Poor guy felt he was being persecuted by 'Americans', but because he knew the role of the judge, and because he actually felt safer *in* jail than outside, the judge ruled he was sane enough to stand trial.  Despite believing that he was the father of God.

The good news is that he responded very well to treatment and medication and has not re-offended as of the last I heard.

[crazy canuck]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

So a crazy person can keep pestering me and making me pay legal fees? can you file a restraining order of sorts to keep from being harrassed by these wacky suits?

Malthus is correct but it takes a fair bit to get someone declared a vexatious litigant.  In the meantime yes the Defendant to go through the process of striking the claim.  The court will award costs but normally that is a blood from stone situation.

[Malthus]

how does it even get to that point? can you serve someone papers without going through court first?

*edit* not actual court proceedings, but through a judge or something.

Nope, I go and get the Action struck for having no prospect for success. 
Actions are not vetted by the Court before hand.

So a crazy person can keep pestering me and making me pay legal fees? can you file a restraining order of sorts to keep from being harrassed by these wacky suits?

Yes.  You can have someone declared a "vexatious litigant" and prohibited from filing further court applications.

These kind of nuisance lawsuits are common enough though (as are lawsuite for patently ridiculous amount of money) that they're not really that interesting to tell stories about.  As you can tell that all three of us have dealt with them.

The Jesus Christ guy wasn't crazy - that's the part that made him interesting.
He also had a legitimate case, sort of.

Situation was this: he was a religious fraudster, who created a ponzi scheme called the "double your blessings ministry". Way it worked was people in his church would give him money and he promised that, through the power of Jesus, he would double it. All of this was run out of his church, which was incorporated.

In fact, he gave the money to our client to invest, a shady investment dealer in Canada (he was from the US). The amounts at stake were large - millions of dollars.

In the end, the feds closed in on the "reverend" and tossed him in the pokey. Casting about for a way to insulate himself, he put all his assets into a religious trust with himself as trustee and the beneficiary being "Jesus Christ, the Son of Man". He dissolved the original corporation.
Well, once our shady client heard about this, he cut the Reverend off from the money (intending to pocket it himself).

Turns out that he could: the Reverend was screwed by that rarest of legal beasts, a true conflict of laws. In Ontario, only legal persons (humans and existing corporations) can sue – and a corporation can be revived any time to commence or continue a lawsuit. In the Reverend's state of incorporation, a dissolved corporation can sue, but once dissolved can never be revived. Having dissolved his corporation and transferred its assets, he was fucked.
It was then that he attempted to sue in the name of the trust, meaning in the name of the beneficiary – in this case, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. Didn't work.

That's only a skeleton outline of a most entertaining case that involved a cast of creeps – fun fact: we sought security for costs so that we could put before the court the Reverend's previous convictions (for, among other things, attempting to import from the third world on an industrial scale videotapes depicting "various acts of beastiality"); another fun fact—the lawyer for the Reverend attempted to seduce our client's secretary with the come-on line "in the City, they call me Mark the Shark". 

[Razgovory]

So what is it the Francophones really want?  I'm getting the feeling there is something unsaid here.  The fact that some our resident Francophones angrily demand that French be on equal footing to English in the rest of Canada, but don't seem to mind that France must predominate in Quebec strikes me as a bit odd.

[crazy canuck]

So what is it the Francophones really want?  I'm getting the feeling there is something unsaid here.  The fact that some our resident Francophones angrily demand that French be on equal footing to English in the rest of Canada, but don't seem to mind that France must predominate in Quebec strikes me as a bit odd.

Now that is a very good question. Especially given the view of Grallon and Viper that the legislation given access to French should be repealed.

[Malthus]

After all, I've had clients sued by Martians...

I seem to recall that story.  Didn't the judge dismiss on the grounds that, if the plaintiff were correct, he had no grounds, as a Martian, to sue in that court?

Yup, that's the one - Martians aren't "persons" who could sue (the backgroud is that at the time it was very difficult to dismiss a case in Ontario in a summary manner for a factual reason - it has since grown easier. Hence the somewhat smartass ruling  ).

[Valmy]

but don't seem to mind that France must predominate in Quebec strikes me as a bit odd.

France has not predominated in Quebec for far too long a time

France does predominate in Saint Pierre and Miquelon though.

[Razgovory]

but don't seem to mind that France must predominate in Quebec strikes me as a bit odd.

France has not predominated in Quebec for far too long a time

France does predominate in Saint Pierre and Miquelon though.

I meant French, not France.  Or if you prefer Francese.