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TURMEL: Appeal of Vexatious Litigant Label Denied

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TURMEL: Appeal of Vexatious Litigant Label Denied 

JCT: The arguments why I'm not a vexatious litigant are in 
my Appeal Memorandum at: http://SmartestMan.Ca/s4008.txt

The appeal was heard on Sep 26 2023 at Toronto. This is the 
S.40 from the Federal Court Act: 
    Vexatious proceedings
    40 (1) If the Federal Court of Appeal or the Federal 
    Court is satisfied, on application, that a person has 
    persistently instituted vexatious proceedings or has 
    conducted a proceeding in a vexatious manner, it may 
    order that no further proceedings be instituted by the 
    person in that court or that a proceeding previously 
    instituted by the person in that court not be continued, 
    except by leave of that court.

JCT: So "no further proceedings be instituted by the person 
in that court" should mean others may.

    (2) An application under subsection (1) may be made only 
    with the consent of the Attorney General of Canada, who 
    is entitled to be heard on the application and on any 
    application made under subsection (3).

    Application for rescission or leave to proceed
    (3) A person against whom a court has made an order 
    under subsection (1) may apply to the court for 
    rescission of the order or for leave to institute or 
    continue a proceeding.
    Court may grant leave

JCT: Rescission: revocation, cancellation of a law, order.. 
So I can ask to have the order struck down next time I have 
to do a fight in Federal Court. If no, then seek leave to 
appeal. 

    (4) If an application is made to a court under 
    subsection (3) for leave to institute or continue a 
    proceeding, the court may grant leave if it is satisfied 
    that the proceeding is not an abuse of process and that 
    there are reasonable grounds for the proceeding.
    No appeal
    (5) A decision of the court under subsection (4) is 
    final and is not subject to appeal.

JCT: Fine. All my issues were of national importance and any 
new one will have to be proven an abuse of process without 
reasonable grounds for proceeding. One at a time,  all my 
issues were reasonable. All together, they may conclude like 
this decision:  

Date: 20230928
Docket: A-265-22
Citation: 2023 FCA 197

CORAM: DE MONTIGNY J.A.
LEBLANC J.A.
GOYETTE J.A.

BETWEEN:
                        JOHN TURMEL
                                                  Appellant
                            and
                 ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA
                                                  Respondent

Heard at Toronto, Ontario, on September 26, 2023.
Judgment delivered at Toronto, Ontario, on September 28, 
2023.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT BY: LEBLANC J.A.
CONCURRED IN BY: DE MONTIGNY J.A.
GOYETTE J.A.

                    REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

LEBLANC, J.A.

J: [1] This is an appeal of a decision of the Federal Court, 
per Fothergill J. (the Application Judge), made pursuant to 
section 40 of the Federal Courts Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. F-7 
(the Act). In his decision (the Decision), the Application 
Judge declared the appellant to be a vexatious litigant and, 
as contemplated by paragraph 40(1) of the Act, prohibited 
the appellant from instituting new proceedings in that 
Court, or continuing previously instituted proceedings, 
except with leave of the Court. The Application Judge also 
saw fit to impose on the appellant additional measures to 
regulate his conduct before the Federal Court, such as 
requiring that any application for leave the appellant may 
bring to institute or continue a proceeding demonstrate that 
all outstanding costs awards made against him in the Federal 
Court have been paid in full, or prohibiting the appellant 
from aiding or abetting others to initiate proceedings 
before that Court. 

JCT: The exact order of Fothergill is: 
    5. Mr. Turmel is prohibited from assisting others with 
    any proceedings before this Court, including by filing 
    materials, or purporting to represent them, or 
    communicating with the Court on their behalf.

JCT: So it's not just to initiate proceedings but to assist 
others at all. I'd bet that's never been done. 

J: [2] As pointed out by the Application Judge, the concept 
of vexatiousness within the context of section 40 of the Act 
does not have a precise meaning but as this Court stated, 
"it is best not to be precise" (Canada v. Olumide, 2017 FCA 
42, at para. 32 (Olumide)). However, there is ample 
jurisprudential guidance - or hallmarks - as to what this 
concept entails. These "hallmarks", which come in "many 
shapes and sizes", include the following: 
    a) being admonished by various courts for engaging in 
    vexatious and abusive behaviour;
    b) instituting frivolous proceedings (including motions, 
    applications, actions and appeals);
    c) making scandalous and unsupported allegations against 
    opposing parties of the Court;
    d) re-litigating issues which have already been decided 
    against the vexatious litigant;
    e) bringing unsuccessful appeals of interlocutory and 
    final decisions as a matter of course;
    f) ignoring court orders and court rules; and
    g) refusing to pay outstanding costs awards against the 
    vexatious litigant.
    (Olumide v. Canada, 2016 FC 1106 at paras. 9-10, cited 
    in Olumide, at para. 34)

[3] Here, the Application Judge was satisfied that the 
appellant has exhibited all these hallmarks (Decision at 
para.38). 

JCT: All the hallmarks! 

J: More particularly, he noted that the appellant "has 
instituted numerous meritless and repetitive proceedings 
before [the Federal Court], the Federal Court of Appeal, the 
Ontario Courts, and the Supreme Court of Canada", "brought 
proceedings for improper purposes, frequently sought to re-
litigate matters decided previously, made scandalous 
allegations against members of the courts and other parties, 
refused to follow the Federal Courts Rules, and failed to 
pay costs orders" (Decision at paras. 3, 5) [reference 
omitted]. 

JCT: I asked them: Who believes the Court would let someone 
refuse to follow the rules? 

J: [4] The Application Judge further noted that the 
appellant has instituted, since 1980, at least 67 court 
proceedings, 

JCT: 1.6 court proceedings a year. Ouch. How overwhelming! 

J; that he did so on a wide range of issues (banking, 
elections, gaming, libel, cannabis and COVID-19), 

JCT: Any one feel like laughing at the frivolity of 
(banking, elections, gaming, libel, cannabis and COVID-19)?

J: and that virtually all of them "have been dismissed as 
failing to disclose reasonable causes of action, 

JCT: No cause of action is a standard judicial cop out. From 
Google: 
    Cause of action is the legal claim [a claim that 
    sometimes goes unstated] that allows a party to seek 
    judicial relief. [1] This gives the legal right to seek 
    a remedy because of the act or omission, failure to 
    perform duty, or breach of obligation of the defendant 
    towards the plaintiff.

JCT: I like to call it Cause of Anger. How I was harmed. So 
no cause of anger about:
- usury taking from the poor to give to the rich; 
- zero free-time in quantitatively equitable political 
broadcasts;  
- being busted for playing Blackjack and Poker; 
- being libelled by low-tech Dragons Den losers;
- being prohibited from using the best natural medication; 
- being tricked into lockdowns and vax to get out. 

None of these are to get angry about. No cause of anger. No 
cause of action. They did say: we can't be judging past 
decisions that ruled all these issues were not reasonable 
causes of action. 

J: as wholly unsupported by evidence, 

JCT: To judges with their eyes closed. 

J: as attempts to relitigate matters previously decided, 

JCT: Only trying to find a judge who doesn't think getting 
zero time is quantitatively equitable and fair.  

J: or as otherwise frivolous and vexatious and abuses of 
process" (Decision at paras. 8-9).

JCT: Anyone find those life-and-death topics frivolous like 
the judges did? Especially with 40 million dead poor people 
over the past 40 years, the thousands who suffered without 
herbal medication; only millions suffering adverse effects 
and death from the lockdowns and not safe and effective vax! 
Let's all laugh over the corpses with the judges who ruled 
trying to stop it frivolous and vexations and an abuse of 
process! 

J: [5] The Application Judge also pointed to the fact that 
since 2014, the appellant has prepared and distributed 
"litigation kits" comprising templates for initiating legal 
claims, 

JCT: I was using "litigation kits" helping people fight 
their bank foreclosures in the 1980s, and helping people 
defend their marijuana charges since 2000. 

J: that these kits were used by other litigants to file 
roughly 770 substantially identical claims challenging 
various aspects of Canada's medical cannabis regulatory 
regime, that the appellant encouraged the use of his 
litigation kits to "flood the courts", 

JCT: Judge Manson cancelled the medication to 18,000 
patients and showing them how to ask to get them back means 
the court should have been flooded with 18,000 plaintiffs, 
not just 400. 

J: and that nearly all of them "have been dismissed or are 
in the process of being dismissed as failing to disclose 
reasonable causes of action, or as otherwise frivolous, 
vexatious or abuses of process" (Decision at paras. 25-28).

JCT: Boy, won't those judges going to have a hot time 
running into their victims in the afterlife? Har har har. 
Imagine if every soul ends up in the same place? 

J:L [6] Finally, it is important to underscore that the 
appellant has neither challenged the evidence relied on by 
the respondent in his application under section 40 of the 
Act, nor adduced any evidence of his own (Decision at para. 
5). 

JCT: It seems pretty obvious that most issues I raised were 
of life-and-death national import. Sad the judges were busy 
laughing! 

J: [7] It is trite that decisions made on motions brought 
under section 40 of the Act are discretionary in nature 
(Feeney v. Canada, 2022 FCA 190, at para. 4 (Feeney); 
Olumide at para. 23). Therefore, in order to intervene in 
such matters, this Court must be satisfied that the Federal 
Court erred on a question of law or committed a palpable and 
overriding error on a question of fact or of mixed fact and 
law (Housen v. Nikolaisen, 2002 SCC 33, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 23; 
Hospira Healthcare Corporation v. Kennedy Institute of 
Rheumatology, 2016 FCA 215). The palpable and overriding 
error standard is a highly deferential one; the Court will 
only interfere with a decision under appeal where an error 
is obvious and affected the outcome of the case (Benhaim v. 
St-Germain, 2016 SCC 48, [2016] 2 S.C.R. 352 at para. 38; 
H.L. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2005 SCC 25, [2005] 1 
S.C.R. 401 at paras. 55-56, 69-70; Contact Lens King Inc. c. 
Canada, 2022 CAF 154 at paras. 76, 84).

JCT: Legalese for why it was right to declare me a vexatious 
litigant for making the judge laugh at my frivolity.

J: [8] Before this Court, both in his written submissions 
and at the hearing, the appellant has attempted to show that 
the court proceedings he has brought so far have merits and 
are neither vexatious nor frivolous and that it was 
therefore an error on the part of the Application Judge to 
conclude otherwise.

JCT: Bingo. That's my Wild Card. 

J: [9] However, this approach is fundamentally flawed. As 
indicated to the appellant at the hearing of this appeal, 
and as pointed out by the respondent in its written 
submissions, we are well past the stage where the court 
decisions in the appellant's prior cases can be questioned. 

JCT: Get that? They can't question the judges who found 
putting farmers out of work in a world that's starving 
frivolous, judges who found zero time a quantitatively 
equitable share; judges who found marijuana could not 
prevent illnesses it was good for once you got them; judges 
who didn't think warning the world Covid was a false alarm 
needing no lockdowns or vax mandates was serious. Judges who 
screw up can't be questioned. 

Actually, that's not true. A judge can always do justice and 
then take the heat if it contradicts and judge who was 
wrong. 

J: Put another way, it was not open to the Application Judge 
- and it is even less open to this Court- to embark in some 
sort of review as to whether these decisions were right or 
wrong. The proper course for the appellant to challenge 
those decisions was to appeal them, something he has done in 
many instances, albeit unsuccessfully. 

JCT: So no help when millions of corpses are too frivolous 
for appellate courts to hear the appeal. 

J: [10] These decisions were therefore part of the factual 
matrix upon which the respondent's application under section 
40 of the Act needed to be determined. The Application Judge 
considered that factual matrix in light of the 
jurisprudential guidelines developed in vexatious litigants' 
misbehaviour matters and I see no error on his part-be it on 
the law or on the application of the law to the facts, 
which, as indicated above, is only fatal in presence of a 
palpable and overriding error-that would justify this 
Court's intervention. 

JCT: Nothing they can do because previous courts found all 
the corpses funny. 

J: [11] The appellant insisted at the hearing that he had 
good intentions in bringing all these claims. However, this, 
in and of itself, is no bar to the application of section 40 
of the Act if a party "litigate(s) in a way that implicates 
section 40's purposes" (Olumide at para.33; Feeney at para. 
25). This is what the Application Judge found to be the case 
here, and once again, I see no basis upon which to interfere 
with his findings.

JCT: Failed to see... 

J: [12] Respecting the additional measures imposed on the 
appellant, the Application Judge correctly pointed out that 
the Federal Court has "plenary jurisdiction to impose 
additional requirements as may be necessary to prevent 
abuses of process" and that some litigants may require 
different measures and restrictions, including safeguards to 
"discourage them from finding other ways to continue their 
vexatious conduct" (Decision at paras. 49-50). 

JCT: But prove the vexatious conduct first. 

J: [13] There is again ample evidence on record supporting 
the Application Judge's conclusion that additional 
restrictions were appropriate in the case at bar, be it the 
number of meritless claims advanced by the appellant, his 
tendency to re-litigate these matters, his failure to pay 
costs orders, his recruitment of others to "flood the 
courts" with his "litigation kits", or his derogatory 
statements on members of the judiciary on social media. 

JCT: It does depend if the previous judges were wrong. 

J: [14] It is useful at this point, in order to put the 
Decision in its proper perspective, to remind what this 
Court said, in Olumide, about what section 40 of the Act 
strives to achieve: 
    [17] Section 40 reflects the fact that the Federal 
    Courts are community property that exists to serve 
    everyone, not a private resource that can commandeered 
    in damaging ways to advance the interests of one.
    [18] As community property, courts allow unrestricted 
    access by default: anyone with standing can start a 
    proceeding. But those who misuse unrestricted access in 
    a damaging way must be restrained. In this way, courts 
    are no different from other community properties like 
    public parks, libraries, community halls and museums.
    [19] The Federal Courts have finite resources that 
    cannot be squandered. Every moment devoted to a 
    vexatious litigant is a moment unavailable to a 
    deserving litigant. The unrestricted access to courts by 
    those whose access should be restricted affects the 
    access of others who need and deserve it. Inaction on 
    the former damages the latter.

JCT: What about every moment devoted to hundreds of 
litigants?  

J: [15] Finally, I note that the Application Judge declined 
to impose a further restriction on the appellant by 
extending his order, as sought by the respondent, to 
proceedings in this Court as he was left with some doubt 
whether he had that authority. Having said that, the 
Application Judge suggested that in the event of an appeal 
of the Decision, this Court "may wish to provide further 
guidance on this jurisdictional question" (Decision at 
para.54). As the appellant has since been declared a 
vexatious litigant in this Court by order dated June 15, 
2023 (reported at 2023 FCA 140), I am of the view that we 
should forgo that invitation because this is no longer a 
live issue in this case.

[16] On a purely procedural standpoint, the appellant has 
incorrectly named the respondent in this appeal as "Her 
Majesty the Queen". He should have named the respondent as 
the Attorney General of Canada, who was the applicant in the 
Federal Court proceeding that led to the Decision. The style 
of cause in this appeal should therefore be amended 
accordingly. 

[17] I would therefore dismiss the appeal, with costs to the 
respondent in a fixed amount of $750.00, disbursements 
included.

JCT: Crown asked for $1,800 in costs. So a thousand cheaper 
is an interesting result. 

 "Rene LeBlanc" J.A.
"I agree
Yves de Montigny J.A."
"I agree
Nathalie Goyette J.A."

APPEARANCES:
John C. Turmel FOR THE APPELLANT
(ON HIS OWN BEHALF)
Jon Bricker
Addison Leigh
FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Shalene Curtis-Micallef
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
FOR THE RESPONDENT

JCT: So I'll appeal to the Supreme Court which has little 
chance. Remember, they chose not to warn Canadians that 
Covid was a false alarm needing no vax and the vax is still 
being pushed. 

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