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Over The Rainbow

By Michael Frisch

The British Columbia Law Society Interim Action Board suspended an attorney on an interim basis

  The Lawyer sued her neighbour seeking damages of $30,000 plus $1,000 per day for “trespass by way of loss”, an unknown legal construct, over a divider installed between their units. That divider was installed on direction of the strata corporation in the strata complex where they both live and not by her neighbour. The Lawyer’s complaint was that it partially obstructed her view of Stanley Park and the North Shore mountains. She filed her lawsuit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia but adapted the Notice of Civil Claim to say that she was actually suing in the “naomi arbabi court” for which she directed, amongst other demands, “the man who at times acts as judge or magistrate to give his oath … at the naomi arbabi court”.

The neighbour applied successfully to strike the claim as vexatious. The Lawyer went public with a podcast interview in which she advocated views that this interim action board (“Board”) finds fall within what are commonly called Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (“OPCA”s), which the Board addresses more fully in its reasons below.
 
The Law Society initiated a proceeding under section 26.01 of the Legal Profession Act, SBC 1998, c.9 (the “Act”), and Rule 3-10 of the Law Society Rules (the “Rules”) to this Board seeking an order suspending the Lawyer from the practise of law until the earlier of:

(a) the final disposition of any proceedings arising from the Law Society’s investigation into the Lawyer’s conduct in Law Society file no. CO20231205, including a citation hearing if one is authorized, or resolution by consent agreement; or

(b) a rescission or variation of the order is made under Rule 3-12(12).

This Board on the date of the proceeding made the interim order sought, with these reasons to follow.
 
CBC News reported that the attorney had resigned from practice and linked to the decision of the British Columbia Supreme Court in the underyling case. 
 
Podcast
 
In the Podcast, the host mentioned that he “googled” the Lawyer’s name and saw “some stuff on the CBC and a couple other mainstream, I think even the LA Times did a story on you over a, a legal dispute you had”. The Lawyer discussed what she called the “law for mankind”: a separate, alternative system of ‘law’ from the conventional legal system, and allegedly superior to it. The Lawyer referred to the civil litigation proceeding against the Layperson as “a very simple claim” that she “could have done without, in sort of the legal way the, the usual route that normal people would take”, but she decided to implement her knowledge about the law for mankind instead, and therefore “make the claim as a woman rather than as an identity”
 
Publicity
 
The civil litigation proceeding, the chambers application and the Podcast have attracted media attention both inside and outside this province, including commentary in a podcast by an Alberta lawyer who heavily criticized the Lawyer and her claims in the context of her role as a practising lawyer in BC. The CBC news story has been picked up by several other news outlets.
 
Lawyer’s position
 
The ebb and flow of the Lawyer’s submission had no discernable direction that the Board could follow. The Lawyer said that trying to explain it to us was like trying to explain a rainbow to a blind person.
 
Interim suspension

The Board has no hesitation in concluding that the extraordinary action of an interim suspension is warranted. In terms of the protection of the Lawyer’s clients, the risk to the public and to the administration of justice, the Lawyer cannot be allowed to continue to practise. The risks are too great.

The Lawyer, who presented in the proceeding as earnest and honest, also presented as someone who at times had a shaky grasp on reality. Moreover, although she is legally trained and practiced in this profession, she seems to have lost, or at least discarded, any understanding of the process and content of the law and our legal system.

While lawyers are afforded broad discretion to advance the causes of their clients, and if they choose to represent themselves, considerable deference for their arguments and the framing of a litigation proceeding, that discretion stops at the point where their actions lack good faith or may constitute an abuse of process.

The Respondent has advanced a style and cause of litigation without a legal foundation, and has done so in an area of law that touches her practice of real estate and property law. A lawyer who practises in these areas, and yet rejects such basics as the workings of the Strata Property Act and of strata governance, and the nature of holding fee simple in a strata property under that Act and the Land Title Act, poses a potentially significant risk to her clients.

(Mike Frisch)

Posted in:
Bar Discipline & Process