In a decision released March 5, 2021, a BC Court Judge has pointed to a lack of screening of court filings at the registry that permitted a litigant to use incorrect procedures to add numerous unrelated parties to a lawsuit where he sought outlandish remedies such as 500,000 Tesla shares and a private audience with Her Majesty the Queen.
Tyler Chamberlin, a self-represented litigant, initially filed a lawsuit against the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for injuries sustained in a bicycle accident in Nanaimo, BC, when he was allegedly struck by a vehicle that did not remain at the scene of an accident in July, 2018.
Mr. Chamberlin was subsequently successful in filing six unrelated demand forms and a petition at the Court registry that attempted to amend his initial lawsuit to add parties such as Her Majesty the Queen, the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Lieutenant Governor, the Premier of British Columbia, the British Columbia Minister of Health, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, Elections BC, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, Transport Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“The relief sought in the notices of civil claim attached to the Form 122 demands and the petition is wide-ranging. It includes a private audience with Her Majesty, the suspension of trade with China, the dismantling of Transport Canada, the postponement of an election, the release of classified documents, the “cleaning up of the swamp,” the reconstruction of the RCMP, an MRI of his entire body, $32 trillion dollars, and 500,000 Tesla shares,” the Court said.
Many of the parties were represented by Counsel at the hearing which led to the Court’s decision to strike documents subsequently filed by Mr. Chamberlin after his initial lawsuit against ICBC.
In doing so, BC Supreme Court Justice Thompson pointed to difficulties that arose from an Administrative Notice released on July 1, 2010 which limited responsibility of registry staff to only screen that a court filing had a registry filing number, registry location, and style of proceeding and not that it necessarily complied with the Rules. This Administrative Notice was rescinded recently on March 1, 2021.
The Court found, not surprisingly, that even if Mr. Chamberlin had used the proper procedure of making an application to add parties to his initial lawsuit, the claims he wanted to make were “scandalous, vexatious, and otherwise an abuse of process.”
Justice Thompson declined to declare Mr. Chamberlin a vexatious litigant in light of the recent rescission of the Administrative Notice and that he was “unlikely to succeed in filing more documents that are not in basic conformity with the Rules.”
