sleeping isn't something that any of us get to actually avoid. hopefully, that's enough of that for another 50 hours or so...
i need to get on this deferral.
to recap, so it's clear what i'm doing.
back in the summer of '18, i was aggressively applying for housing with whomever would take an application. i was specifically seeking a housing complex that would ruthlessly enforce a non-smoking policy - i wanted to find a management group that would throw somebody out for smoking anything, on the spot. what i found instead was apartment after apartment that advertised itself as non-smoking, but was full of smokers.
out of the blue in august, one ad that i had applied for repeatedly with minimal response told me that if i kept responding then they'd call the cops and have me charged with harassment. i interpreted this as a challenge to my speech rights, and told them that any attempts to prevent me from applying for housing with this complex will be met with a discrimination lawsuit.
i was, in fact - absurdly - arrested and held overnight and then speciously charged with repeated communication for the purposes of renting an apartment, a charge that does not exist in the criminal code. after some ridiculous attempts to get me to plea bargain and admit to committing a crime that doesn't exist, the charges were eventually dropped. with prejudice.
i am currently fighting a divisional court appeal on the legality of the arrest, which i will need to schedule when the scheduler gets back at the end of the week. i expect this to go to the court of appeal, and may need to take it to the supreme court. this has been the focus of most of my efforts....
there will then be a direct constitutional rights challenge regarding the legality of the arrest, in which i will be suing the windsor police for millions of dollars for false arrest and illegal detainment. one thing at a time. but, that's the end goal - a multi-million dollar lawsuit directed at the city.
but, there is still the issue of the discrimination suit that set the process off.
there is no statute of limitations regarding charter challenges, and i'm content to wait for the judicial review to complete before i launch the final challenge. but, i had to get the human rights complaint in within a year.
problem: i did not know this person's address, and could not find it in the phone book. that's necessary to serve the person. and, i make no argument there - i think the process as it is is archaic, but i agree that serving parties is important. the case shouldn't go forward without her knowledge, and she does deserve the right to defend herself.
i didn't know what to do, though, so i filed the case without an address. the tribunal responded, as was expected, but in a way that was less helpful than i expected - it told me to get them the address by a specific date, or they'd drop the case.
as i was unwilling to make any attempt to figure out who this person was that could be construed as attempting to gather information about her, i made the rather cheeky step of filing a request for an order with the police, as they were the only entity that i was certain knew her address and i felt comfortable in the unambiguous and clear legality of doing such a thing. i wasn't even comfortable doing a basic facebook search for this woman, at this point, as the cops seemed keen to frame me with whatever they could. the request to get the address from the cops made the point clear - i didn't know where this woman lived or anything about her, and suggestions to the contrary are merely the insane projections of a schizophrenic loon. rather, i was rather obviously arrested to try and intimidate me from filing the suit, and that can't succeed in a free society - not any more than a threat to infringe upon my speech rights can. this is a matter of principle. i have the most basic fundamental rights and freedoms to defend, here, against an out of control police force that needs to be taken down a notch.
the judge responded by telling me that i should do a corporate search first, and that if i can't find the address using the corporate search then i should file the order again.
so, i went to the special library in toronto and got the search done and got a po box at a money mart - an obviously wrong address, as money mart has not offered po boxes in many years. as such, i did file the order again.
the judge's response this time was different. he pointed out that i did my due diligence in getting the address, and came up with an address that is obviously not in current use. he recognized that i was making a request that the police hand over the address because i realized that the existing address is not in use. however, he then decided that this was enough due diligence on my behalf and that it is her responsibility to update her address with the government, not the court's to chase her down to find it. he then indicated that the court would treat the case in absentia should she not respond within the statutorily prescribed 35 days, which are up as of today.
so, the update on the situation is that she has now forfeited the right to defend herself, which is perhaps not the outcome i'd have ruled upon, but an easier path for me, nonetheless.
the judge had to make a judgement call, here. there are privacy laws here, but she also has a right to be served, and, as noted, the cops were the only way i knew how to legally get the address. if she ends up losing a $100,000 case without being given the opportunity to defend herself - or settle - it is questionable that the police will have acted in her best interests. if i were the lawyer for the cops, i'd have probably volunteered the information, under the recognition that a strong case exists against her, and she deserves to be able to defend herself in it. what they did doesn't protect her, it exposes her to a large lawsuit that she'll probably lose if she can't defend herself in it.
so, what is more important here, from the judges' perspective? does she deserve the right to present a defense? if so, he should order the cops to hand over the information. or do the privacy laws overpower? if so, he should order the trial to continue in absentia. what the judge picked was the path of least interference - and in the process gave me an open floor to make my case.
i do not feel that this should go forward until we can get a clear answer from the judicial review on the legality of the arrest, partly because i'm probably going to be requesting an inquiry at the hearing. if the arrest was illegal, how much influence did the property owner have over it? so, i would have liked to defer this earlier. however, i would have had to serve all of the parties in order to do so, and i did not have the address of the respondent.
when i initially filed the case in july, i also had reasonable grounds to expect the process would be finished by now. these delays have a ripple effect.
what changes today is that i no longer need to worry about serving the respondent - i can just send the relevant material to the tribunal.
so, we're going to start with the deferral request - which goes strictly to the tribunal - and go from there.
