Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Res judicata and issue estoppel arising from the 2017 dependant’s relief decision and subsequent failed appeals, foreclosing any renewed support or constructive trust claims.
• Lack of standing of the Applicant, who is neither a dependant nor a beneficiary of either estate and thus cannot challenge administration, tax filings, or seek passing of accounts.
• Limitation period bars under s. 61 of the Succession Law Reform Act and s. 38(3) of the Trustee Act for late dependant’s support and constructive trust claims.
• Abuse of process and vexatious conduct, including repeated non-payment of costs orders, evasion of examinations in aid of execution, and attempts to re-litigate settled issues.
• Reliance on unproven allegations of fraud, underreported estate value, tax non-compliance and conflict of interest, without admissible evidence or any financial interest to ground the claims.
• Highly abusive, racist and threatening communications by the Applicant toward opposing counsel and the court, informing the court’s exercise of its procedural control and cost sanctions.

Facts and procedural history

The litigation arises out of the Estate of the late Jeffrey Kerzner, who died on 31 December 2016 leaving a 2012 will that appointed his friend, retired lawyer Arlene Wolfe, as Estate Trustee. Under that will, Jeffrey’s two children, Sarah and Jacob, are the sole beneficiaries of his estate. Jeffrey’s father, Joseph Kerzner, had died in 2015. Jeffrey was a beneficiary of his father’s estate and became entitled to money from the Joseph Estate, but he died before receiving all of it. Those remaining entitlements passed, not to the Applicant, but to Jeffrey’s children.

The Applicant, Branislava Stajduhar, was a “casual girlfriend” of Jeffrey. She is neither named as a beneficiary in Jeffrey’s will nor in Joseph’s, and she holds no legal interest in either estate. Nonetheless, she and her daughter first entered the estate litigation in 2017, filing an objection to Ms Wolfe’s appointment as Estate Trustee of Jeffrey’s estate. That objection was dismissed, and a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee with a Will was issued to Ms Wolfe on 6 June 2017, confirming her authority to administer the estate.

Shortly thereafter, in May 2017, the Applicant and her daughter commenced an application for dependant’s relief under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA), claiming that the Applicant was a dependant spouse and that her daughter was a dependant child of Jeffrey. In a comprehensive 2017 decision, Justice Dunphy dismissed the application. He found that the Applicant was not Jeffrey’s common-law spouse, that they had never cohabited, and that their relationship had been on-and-off in the three years preceding Jeffrey’s death. He also rejected her assertions regarding the size of Jeffrey’s estate, characterising them as “hugely exaggerated” and contradicted by the evidence. Costs of $25,000 were awarded against the Applicant and her daughter on that application.

The Applicant and her daughter appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal in 2018 and ordered an additional $12,500 in costs against them. They then sought an extension of time to pursue leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court dismissed the motion in 2019, awarding $1,566.78 in costs and expressly observing that even if time were extended, leave would have been refused. None of these costs awards have been paid.

Parallel to these civil proceedings, the Applicant tried to initiate private criminal informations against Ms Wolfe and Jeffrey’s daughter Sarah, alleging theft, criminal mischief and obstruction of justice. A Justice of the Peace declined to issue the informations for lack of sufficient evidence. Meanwhile, Ms Wolfe, acting for the estate, attempted repeatedly to examine the Applicant in aid of execution on the unpaid costs. The Applicant evaded service on multiple occasions and ultimately failed to attend an examination scheduled after an order permitting substituted service. As a result, writs of execution were filed and renewed against the Applicant and her daughter, but meaningful enforcement stalled due to the costs of further legal steps.

In 2025, the Applicant launched a new application in the Superior Court of Justice. Formally, the pleading is framed as a request for “guidance”, “directives” or “orders” concerning the valuation of Joseph and Jeffrey’s estates, the payment (and alleged underpayment) of Estate Administration Tax, the issuance of estate certificates, and supposed conflicts of interest involving prior lawyers and judges. In substance, she sought to revive or repackage the previously dismissed dependant’s relief claims, to allege widespread fraud and concealment in the estates’ administration, and to obtain sweeping relief such as an accounting, forensic audit, removal of Ms Wolfe as trustee, freezing and preservation of estate assets, and a constructive trust in her favour based on alleged contributions to Jeffrey’s household and business ventures. Some of these additional claims appeared for the first time only in her factum rather than the originating application.

During this second round of litigation, irregularities also arose regarding service and scheduling. A hearing date was set for the Applicant’s new application without proper notice to Ms Wolfe’s counsel, and the supporting affidavit of service contained questionable information. When the matter eventually came before Justice Gilmore on 22 August 2025, the previously scheduled hearing date was vacated and a timetable was fixed, including a date for a motion by Ms Wolfe seeking dismissal of the application and relief under vexatious litigant provisions.

In support of that motion, Ms Wolfe relied not only on the prior litigation history and unpaid costs but also on a series of highly abusive, racist and vulgar emails the Applicant sent to counsel and court staff. The emails included explicit insults directed at Ms Wolfe’s counsel, references to her ethnicity, and sweeping accusations that counsel and judges were engaged in “criminal activities” and fraud. These communications formed part of the evidentiary foundation for the assertion that the Applicant’s conduct had become vexatious and abusive of the court’s process.

The Applicant responded by seeking to strike supplementary motion materials filed by Ms Wolfe’s counsel, arguing they were late and filed without leave, and alternatively seeking an adjournment. She also insisted that no valid Certificate of Appointment had ever been issued for Jeffrey’s estate, that the estate was fraudulently undervalued—claiming it was worth over $40 million rather than the approximately $1.5 million previously accepted by the court—and that Ms Wolfe had failed to remit correct Estate Administration Tax and had not properly passed her accounts. She continued to assert that she was Jeffrey’s long-term common-law partner, that she had contributed substantial funds to him, and that she had a constructive trust claim and an entitlement to retroactive dependant’s support. She also demanded comprehensive disclosure and forensic tracing of assets in both estates, and the removal of Ms Wolfe as Estate Trustee.

Legal framework and key issues

Justice Gilmore’s decision turns on established principles of res judicata and abuse of process, statutory standing and limitation periods in estate claims, the court’s authority to control its own process, and the framework for designating or constraining vexatious litigants.

First, the court applied res judicata and issue estoppel to the renewed claims for dependant’s relief. The question of whether the Applicant was a dependant spouse and whether her daughter was a dependant child had already been fully litigated and finally decided in the 2017 application before Justice Dunphy, affirmed by the Court of Appeal and left undisturbed by the Supreme Court. The factual findings that the Applicant and Jeffrey were not common-law spouses, had never cohabited, and had an intermittent relationship remained binding. As a result, any attempt to reassert dependant’s relief or to re-characterise the relationship as giving rise to constructive trust or other dependant-type claims was barred.

Second, the court addressed standing. Under Ontario estate law and the Rules of Civil Procedure, only persons with a financial or other legally recognised interest in an estate—typically beneficiaries, creditors, or true dependants—may challenge estate administration, demand passing of accounts, or litigate related tax and fiduciary issues. The Applicant had already been judicially determined not to be a dependant or a beneficiary of either estate. She thus had no standing to question the estate tax filings, to demand CRA or Ministry of Finance investigations, to challenge whether Ms Wolfe passed her accounts, or to complain of conflicts of interest or fiduciary breaches affecting the administration. If there were genuine concerns about tax or accounting, it would be the beneficiaries or the relevant authorities, not an unrelated former girlfriend, who could properly raise them.

Third, limitation periods were central. Section 61 of the SLRA imposes a six-month limitation period from the date of the grant of probate (Certificate of Appointment) for bringing a claim for dependant’s support, subject to the court’s discretion to extend time in limited circumstances. A certificate had been issued in June 2017, and the Applicant never brought a proper motion to extend the limitation. Likewise, under section 38(3) of the Trustee Act, constructive or resulting trust claims against an estate must be advanced within two years of the deceased’s death. Jeffrey died in December 2016, and any such claim would have had to be commenced by late 2018. Justice Gilmore found that these limitation periods had long since expired and that the Applicant’s allegations of fraud and concealment could not revive them, particularly in light of her lack of standing and the absence of cogent, admissible evidence of wrongdoing.

Fourth, the court considered the evidentiary record surrounding the estate’s value and taxation. The Applicant alleged that Jeffrey’s estate was worth over $40 million and that the Estate Administration Tax had been grossly underpaid, rendering prior judicial determinations on support flawed. Justice Gilmore rejected this narrative, instead relying on the factual findings of Justice Dunphy in 2017 regarding Jeffrey’s income stream from his father and the value of his estate, which was in the range of $1.5 million. There was no new reliable evidence to overturn those findings. Moreover, questions about whether the proper Estate Administration Tax was paid fall under the purview of the Ontario Ministry of Finance. Even if there had been some discrepancy, that would be a matter for the tax authority rather than a basis for private litigation by someone with no estate interest.

Fifth, the court examined whether Ms Wolfe had in fact been properly appointed and whether she had any conflict of interest. The record showed that the Applicant’s objection to Ms Wolfe’s appointment had been dismissed and that a Certificate of Appointment naming Ms Wolfe as Estate Trustee with a Will was issued in June 2017. No appeal was taken from that order. Her appointment and authority as trustee were therefore beyond legitimate dispute. As for alleged conflicts, Ms Wolfe was not a beneficiary of the estate and there was no evidence that the actual beneficiaries, Jeffrey’s children, had questioned her conduct or tried to remove her. On that basis, the court characterised the conflict allegations as baseless.

Finally, the court addressed the Applicant’s conduct and the request to declare her a vexatious litigant. The Respondent relied on the statutory and rule-based regimes for vexatious proceedings, which allow the court, on notice, to impose restrictions where a person persistently initiates or conducts litigation in a vexatious manner. Justice Gilmore reviewed the legal tests and indicia of vexatious or “querulous” litigation as articulated in leading authorities, including Re Lang Michener v. Fabian and later appellate commentary. The hallmarks include repeated attempts to re-litigate decided issues, meritless or unintelligible claims, improper purposes such as harassment, failure to pay prior costs awards, and abusive communications directed at opponents, counsel and the court.

The court’s analysis and reasoning

Justice Gilmore began by disposing of the Applicant’s preliminary motion to strike supplementary materials filed by the Respondent. The challenged materials were affidavits of service attaching the Applicant’s own emails to opposing counsel. The court accepted that while the Rules do not formally provide for reply motion material in every case, it is accepted practice to allow such material where it responds to new issues, and that the court is entitled to have a complete record. The supplementary affidavits contained no new substantive evidence beyond the Applicant’s emails, whose authenticity she did not dispute. They had been served more than two weeks before the hearing, with no request to cross-examine. The court therefore admitted them and dismissed the request to strike or to adjourn.

On the merits of the motion to dismiss, the court held that the Applicant “does not have standing” and that the doctrine of res judicata fully applied to her dependant’s relief claims. The same relationship, the same allegation of dependency, and essentially the same parties had been before Justice Dunphy in 2017 and before the appellate courts, and the Applicant had exhausted her avenues of appeal without success. None of the factual findings from those decisions had been overturned. The attempt to add a constructive trust claim through a later factum did not overcome either res judicata or the strict limitations regime for trust claims against an estate.

Turning to the Applicant’s renewed requests for dependant’s relief and related remedies, Justice Gilmore also found them plainly statute-barred. The six-month limitation period in s. 61 SLRA had long since expired following the 2017 grant of probate. The Applicant never properly sought an extension, and her effort to argue that no certificate was ever issued was contradicted by the documentary record. Likewise, any constructive trust claim was barred under the two-year limitation in s. 38(3) of the Trustee Act, by a margin of several years. Although allegations of fraud can in some contexts affect limitation analysis, the judge emphasised that the Applicant has no legal or financial interest in the estate and cannot prosecute fraud or tax-related claims on behalf of the state or the beneficiaries.

The court then addressed the Applicant’s allegations of tax underpayment, improper or missing estate tax returns, failure to pass accounts, and conflicts of interest. It concluded that these contentions were speculative, unsupported by admissible evidence, and, most importantly, advanced by someone without standing. The earlier 2017 decision on estate value and tax had never been displaced by new evidence, and estate taxation questions are for the Ministry of Finance and CRA. If any penalties or losses were incurred because of misadministration, it would be open to the beneficiaries, not the Applicant, to complain or seek removal of the trustee. The record contained no evidence that the children beneficiaries were dissatisfied with Ms Wolfe’s administration.

Justice Gilmore next considered the Applicant’s refusal to comply with past costs orders and enforcement processes. The court noted that the Applicant had repeatedly avoided service of examinations in aid of execution and had failed to attend even after an order for substituted service. She had paid none of the four outstanding costs awards from 2017 to 2019, yet she continued to seek extensive new relief from the court while insisting that the estate, not she, should bear the costs of her unsuccessful litigation. Citing authority on the importance of enforcing costs orders and court rules uniformly to preserve the integrity of the civil justice system, the judge stated that access to the courts carries responsibilities, including compliance with orders and an acceptance that unsuccessful litigants may be required to pay costs.

With those substantive and procedural defects established, the court concluded that the new application was “an abuse of process” for multiple reasons: it was improperly constituted and vague; the Applicant lacked standing and her claims had no legal merit; her dependant’s relief and trust claims were limitation-barred; she had not come to court with clean hands given her persistent refusal to pay prior costs; and her fraud allegations could not survive, as she had no legal footing to advance them.

On the vexatious litigant issue, Justice Gilmore accepted that many of the classic indicators of vexatious litigation were present: repeated re-litigation of settled issues; meritless, unintelligible and ever-expanding claims; unsustainable allegations of systemic fraud against counsel and judges; and an entrenched refusal to pay costs. The Applicant’s behaviour toward opposing counsel, including racist and obscene emails, was described as “appalling” and “scurrilous”. Her attempts to drive the case forward by securing hearing dates without proper service and by using inflammatory rhetoric against court staff were also treated as aggravating factors.

However, the court drew an important distinction. Unlike in some cases where a party has engaged in a decade or more of sprawling, multi-front litigation, the Applicant’s conduct, while serious, had not yet reached the entrenched, systemic level often seen in formal vexatious litigant designations. Her original 2017 application, though unsuccessful, was not itself vexatious. It was the subsequent attempt to reopen the case, coupled with her abusive conduct and refusal to comply with orders, that crossed into abuse of process. On that basis, Justice Gilmore declined to label her a vexatious litigant under the strict statutory regime but nevertheless imposed significant prospective controls on her ability to litigate in the future.

Outcome and orders

Justice Gilmore allowed Ms Wolfe’s motion in part and dismissed the Applicant’s new application in its entirety. The court held that the application was an abuse of process, that the Applicant lacked standing, and that her claims were either res judicata or limitation-barred. The allegations of fraud, conflict and gross under-valuation of the estate were rejected as unsubstantiated and, in any event, legally incapable of being advanced by someone with no interest in the estate.

Although the court stopped short of declaring the Applicant a formal vexatious litigant under section 140 of the Courts of Justice Act or rule 2.2, it nonetheless imposed stringent conditions on any future proceeding she might seek to commence in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario. Specifically, she must obtain leave of the court and attach a copy of Justice Gilmore’s endorsement to any new application; any such application must be prepared by, and prosecuted through, a lawyer, with court staff instructed only to engage with her counsel; and she may not commence any new application until she has satisfied all outstanding costs orders, including those made on this motion, providing proof of payment at the time of filing. Court staff may refuse to issue process if these conditions are not met.

On costs, the court held that the estate had already “been put through enough” and should be fully indemnified for the expense of responding to a meritless and abusive proceeding. Substantial indemnity costs of $16,253.58 were ordered payable by the Applicant to the Respondent forthwith. When combined with the earlier costs awards recited in the decision—$2,500 on the trustee appointment objection, $25,000 on the 2017 dependant’s relief application, $12,500 on the Court of Appeal dismissal, and $1,566.78 on the Supreme Court motion—the total costs awarded against the Applicant and in favour of the estate interests across the related litigation amount to $57,820.36, exclusive of interest, although only $16,253.58 is newly ordered in this 2026 endorsement and the exact interest component on the prior orders cannot be determined from the decision.