Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Dispute over partition and sale of a family farm co-owned by siblings and their mother.

• Plaintiff repeatedly failed to comply with a 2021 settlement agreement to purchase co-owners' shares.

• Multiple judicial orders enforced sale to a third party after plaintiff’s continued default.

• Plaintiff challenged the validity of the sale, alleging the notary and bailiff exceeded their authority.

• Numerous filings by the plaintiff were declared abusive, culminating in a declaration of quérulente (vexatious litigant).

• Court of Appeal denied leave to appeal, finding no legal error or injustice in the Superior Court’s ruling.

Facts and procedural history

In Diodati v. Zenga Diodati, 2025 QCCA 506, the dispute involved the Diodati family's jointly owned farm. Giovanna Diodati, the applicant, is the daughter of Maria (Mariantonia) Zenga Diodati and the sister of Anna, Antonio (deceased), and Angelo Diodati. Each held a 20% indivisible share in the family property. Since 2019, the co-owners sought partition and sale of the property, which Giovanna opposed. A resolution seemed to emerge in May 2021, when Giovanna agreed to purchase the shares of the other co-owners for $800,000. The agreement included a stipulation that if she defaulted, the farm would be sold to a third party, Jean-Charles Groulx, for $1 million. This settlement was formalized by a court judgment.

Giovanna failed to complete the purchase within the agreed timeline, triggering enforcement proceedings. In November 2021, the Superior Court approved Groulx’s conditional offer and established terms for a court-supervised sale. Giovanna’s request to appeal that judgment was denied. She then challenged her former attorney’s actions and attempted to suspend the enforcement, which was again dismissed as abusive. Despite repeated orders, she refused to sign the deed of sale, leading the court to authorize a bailiff to do so on her behalf.

She continued resisting the sale. Her attempt to invalidate the sale based on the signing date was rejected in May 2023. That same ruling ordered her expulsion from the farm. After she refused to vacate, the court granted a permanent injunction and found her in illegal occupation, awarding financial compensation to the other parties. Her final filings included an attempt to declare the notarized deed a false document and a counterclaim for $100,000 in damages against Groulx for her eviction.

Superior Court decision and appeal request

On January 27, 2025, Justice Thomas M. Davis of the Superior Court dismissed Giovanna Diodati’s motions, upheld the validity of the sale, and issued several final orders. These included an interlocutory injunction, eviction confirmation, and a $27,473.80 compensation award to Groulx for illegal occupation, plus $64,000 in extrajudicial fees for abusive litigation. The court also declared Giovanna a quérulente (vexatious litigant), given her persistent and repetitive abuse of the judicial process over several years.

Giovanna sought leave to appeal under article 30(2)(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure, which requires such permission in cases involving abuse findings. She argued that the sale was invalid due to procedural technicalities and that the damages and quérulence declaration were unjust.

Court of Appeal ruling

Justice Stephen W. Hamilton of the Québec Court of Appeal rejected the motion for leave to appeal. He found that all of Giovanna’s arguments had either been previously adjudicated or lacked any prospect of success. The court ruled that the judgment she challenged was a logical continuation of a series of consistent rulings dating back to 2021. Her claim that the sale was invalid because the bailiff signed after the specified date was deemed legally irrelevant, particularly because no injustice could result even if the claim were accepted—the court could simply set a new date.

The court emphasized the finality of prior judgments, particularly those unappealed, and noted that repackaging identical arguments in new legal vehicles did not justify appellate review. The quérulence declaration and damages were not novel or controversial in law, and the judge’s reasoning was sound and proportionate. Justice Hamilton concluded that continued proceedings would be abusive and unjustified.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal and ordered costs against Giovanna Diodati, reaffirming the Superior Court’s findings and bringing closure to years of protracted litigation.