Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope and effect of a vexatious litigant order under s. 140 of the Courts of Justice Act, including whether it bars new motions and appeals without prior leave from a Superior Court judge.
• Procedural propriety of filing and maintaining an appeal and motion in the Court of Appeal when the litigant is subject to a broad vexatious litigant order and has not obtained leave.
• Legality of attempting to relitigate numerous prior orders and dismissed appeals through a single, wide-ranging motion framed as constitutional and human-rights complaints.
• Significance of repeated non-payment of outstanding costs orders, abusive litigation conduct, and massive, duplicative records as justification for striking pleadings and dismissing further steps.
• Limits of appellate jurisdiction of a single judge to interfere with Registrar’s dismissal orders and to address appeals that should not have been accepted for filing.
• Entitlement to modest costs in favour of the responding corporate landlord when the self-represented vexatious litigant’s motions are dismissed for lack of jurisdiction and non-compliance with the vexatious litigant order.

Background and factual context

The litigation arises out of a failed commercial venture to develop a heritage theatre in Toronto into a banquet and concert hall. In 2018, Ronald (also known as Rony or Ronny) Hitti undertook this business through 285 Spadina SPV Inc., a corporation he controlled. His mother, Raja Farah, was also a director and officer of 285 Spadina at the time. The premises were leased from 2356802 Ontario Corp., the landlord of the heritage theatre. Over time, disputes developed both between the landlord and tenant under the lease, and between 285 Spadina and its investors.
These disputes produced two main proceedings in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The first was an application brought by 2356802 Ontario Corp. concerning landlord–tenant issues under the lease for the theatre (referred to as the Lease Application). The second was a parallel oppression application brought by investors in 285 Spadina, seeking corporate oppression remedies against those in control of the company (referred to as the Oppression Application). Within these proceedings, control over 285 Spadina and the conduct of its principals—particularly Mr. Hitti—became a recurring theme.
In February 2023, Justice Steele ordered that both Mr. Hitti and Ms. Farah be removed as directors and officers of 285 Spadina. Despite that removal, the courts later found that, in practical terms, Mr. Hitti continued to exercise effective control over the corporation, particularly in how it conducted litigation. Throughout the history of the case, he initiated numerous motions and applications in both streams of litigation, generating dozens of decisions and repeatedly attempting to revisit previously decided issues.
The record shows that his litigation strategy involved filing extremely large, diffuse motion records that recycled material from prior proceedings and made wide-ranging, often inflammatory allegations. He frequently ignored court orders, failed to pay costs awards made against him, and advanced serious accusations against judges and state actors without evidentiary foundation. This conduct eventually led the Attorney General to seek a vexatious litigant order.

The vexatious litigant order and its consequences

On September 19, 2023, Justice Osborne declared Mr. Hitti a vexatious litigant under s. 140 of the Courts of Justice Act. The order provided that he was prohibited from instituting any further proceedings in any court except with leave of a judge of the Superior Court of Justice. This was a broad order, expressly intended to restrict his ability to initiate or continue new proceedings, including appeals and motions, without prior leave.
Mr. Hitti appealed the vexatious litigant order to the Court of Appeal in proceeding COA-23-CV-1030. However, that appeal was administratively dismissed by the Registrar on December 6, 2023, for delay, and the dismissal order was never set aside. Despite this, he continued to behave as though the vexatious litigant order was either invalid or of no effect, insisting that he remained free to bring new motions and appeals without leave.
In July 2025, he sought leave to bring a motion under rule 51.06 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to set aside orders made by Justice Kimmel in April 2022. Justice Black, hearing that leave motion, refused leave on July 18, 2025. In his reasons, Justice Black found that Mr. Hitti had exercised effective control over 285 Spadina throughout much of the litigation and that his conduct remained abusive and vexatious. Because of what he described as a “monumental and ongoing failure” by Mr. Hitti to pay numerous outstanding costs orders and his continued frivolous and vexatious litigation behaviour, Justice Black struck the pleadings of both Mr. Hitti and 285 Spadina as respondents in the Lease Application and the Oppression Application.
Justice Black also observed that the applicants in those underlying proceedings (the landlord and the investor group) had themselves taken virtually no steps for many years. He expressed doubts about the utility of allowing the applications to proceed further and therefore directed that a case conference be held before Justice Cavanagh to determine whether any party still had a real interest in continuing the litigation and, if so, for what purpose.

Dismissal of the underlying applications

At the case conference held on September 29, 2025, Justice Cavanagh concluded that the applicants in both the Lease Application and the Oppression Application no longer wished to pursue their claims. In light of that, and despite objections from Mr. Hitti, he ordered that both applications be dismissed. The applicants—who had initiated the proceedings—indicated that they did not intend to proceed, and with the pleadings of 285 Spadina and Mr. Hitti already struck, the utility of keeping the matters alive was minimal.
Mr. Hitti objected strongly to this outcome. He argued that the applications should be stayed rather than dismissed, pending an appeal he claimed to have commenced from Justice Black’s orders. The difficulty for him was that any such appeal required leave because of the existing vexatious litigant order. The Court of Appeal had in fact refused to accept his proposed appeal of Justice Black’s orders for filing, as he had not first obtained the necessary leave from a Superior Court judge under s. 140. The appellate court confirmed that such an appeal was not, and is not, properly before it.
Following Justice Cavanagh’s dismissal of the Lease Application and the Oppression Application, Mr. Hitti filed a notice of appeal. The Registrar of the Court of Appeal accepted the notice for filing, and the appeal was given the docket COA-25-CV-1552. This step later attracted criticism from Justice Paciocco, who expressed the view that the Registrar should not have accepted the appeal in light of the vexatious litigant order. Nonetheless, the appeal remained formally on the court’s list, and the motion considered in the 2026 ONCA 32 decision was brought within that appeal.

The wide-ranging motion before the Court of Appeal

Within the appeal COA-25-CV-1552, Mr. Hitti brought a sprawling motion purporting to seek an extensive array of procedural and substantive relief. Formally, it was brought on behalf of both himself and his mother, Ms. Farah, though he asserted that he held a continuing power of attorney for her and was acting as her litigation guardian. The motion was also described as being brought in the old appeal COA-23-CV-1030, despite that earlier appeal having been dismissed for delay in December 2023 and never reinstated.
The relief requested went far beyond any issues directly arising from Justice Cavanagh’s decision dismissing the two applications. Among other things, the motion asked for an order setting aside the Registrar’s dismissal of the appeal from the vexatious litigant order and a declaration that Justice Osborne’s vexatious litigant order was ultra vires, invalid, and of no effect. It sought consolidation of the earlier and current appeals, a stay of the vexatious litigant order and of all decisions in both the Lease Application and the Oppression Application, reinstatement of five separate appeals that had been abandoned or dismissed, and a series of broad factual and constitutional declarations.
The motion also requested declarations that several Superior Court judges had acted in bad faith, denied or concealed knowledge of his alleged disability, and enabled abuse of process by other parties. It further sought declarations that various state actors, including the Ministry of the Attorney General, had violated his and his mother’s enumerated rights and implied that all rulings adverse to him were themselves abusive, vexatious, or unconstitutional. Some of the relief appeared to touch on rights under the lease with 2356802 Ontario Corp., his claimed right to represent 285 Spadina, the provision of public funding for legal fees, and the return of property.
Justice Paciocco described the motion as displaying many hallmarks of vexatious and frivolous litigation. He noted that much of the relief was not available through the appeal process at all, still less before a single judge of the Court of Appeal on a motion. The motion record relied heavily on broad allegations of conspiracy and bad faith against judges and public officials, unsupported claims of Charter, human rights, and criminal law violations, and even unspecified references to habeas corpus. The judge commented that the motion would have been an appropriate candidate for summary dismissal under rule 2.1.02 as an abuse of process, had that been necessary.

Application of the vexatious litigant order to the motion

The central legal issue was whether, given the existing vexatious litigant order, Mr. Hitti had any right to bring this motion without first obtaining leave from a judge of the Superior Court of Justice. He argued that he did not require leave because, in his view, the original vexatious litigant order was void, ultra vires, and of no effect. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument. Justice Paciocco emphasized that a vexatious litigant order issued under s. 140 of the Courts of Justice Act remains operative until it is reversed or stayed. The proper avenue to challenge such an order is by duly pursued appeal or by seeking a stay; so long as it stands, it must be respected.
The Court further confirmed that while a vexatious litigant order is itself a final order appealable to the Court of Appeal without leave, a litigant subject to a broad s. 140 order must still obtain leave from a Superior Court judge before bringing any further “proceedings in any court,” including motions brought within an appeal. The jurisprudence in cases such as Son v. Khan and College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario v. Yan makes it clear that, apart from arguing the appeal of the vexatious litigant order itself, any motions in that appeal or related proceedings fall within the scope of the leave requirement.
Justice Paciocco held that, because the Osborne order prohibited Mr. Hitti from instituting any further proceeding in any court without leave, and because that order had neither been reversed nor stayed, he was required to obtain leave before bringing the motions now under consideration. He had not done so. On that basis alone, the motions were required to be dismissed. The judge relied both on the express terms of the vexatious litigant order and on s. 140(3) of the Courts of Justice Act, which governs the institution of proceedings by persons declared vexatious.
The judge also noted that, although the motion purported to seek an order setting aside the Registrar’s 2023 dismissal of the appeal from the vexatious litigant order, even that kind of motion required prior leave, since it was a motion made within the context of that same appeal. Additionally, it was improperly brought in the context of the later appeal, COA-25-CV-1552, instead of being properly framed and filed in the earlier proceeding.

Jurisdictional limits and comments on the appeal

In the course of his reasons, Justice Paciocco remarked that, in his view, the Registrar should not have accepted the filing of appeal COA-25-CV-1552 from Justice Cavanagh’s order in the first place. That appeal was not an appeal from the vexatious litigant order itself but was nonetheless a proceeding instituted in a court by a person already subject to an order under s. 140. As such, leave should have been obtained before the notice of appeal was accepted.
However, sitting as a single judge of the Court of Appeal on a motion, Justice Paciocco concluded that he lacked jurisdiction to dismiss the appeal outright on that basis. He therefore confined himself to disposing of the motion, leaving the status of the underlying appeal to be addressed, if necessary, by a properly constituted panel or through other procedural channels.

Absence of insurance or policy term issues

The decision contains no discussion of insurance coverage, policy wording, or contractual insurance clauses. Although the motion invoked a wide range of legal instruments—including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Criminal Code, and international covenants—these references were found to be manifestly inapplicable to the real issues at stake. The court treated them as part of the pattern of grandiose and unfounded assertions rather than as genuine policy or contractual disputes. There were no insurance policies or detailed contract clauses that formed the subject of interpretive analysis in this appellate decision.

Outcome and costs

In the result, Justice Paciocco dismissed the motions brought by Mr. Hitti (purportedly on his own behalf and on behalf of Ms. Farah) within appeal COA-25-CV-1552 on the basis that he had failed to obtain leave as required under the existing vexatious litigant order and s. 140 of the Courts of Justice Act. The judge declined to entertain the attempt to revive the earlier appeal from the vexatious litigant order or to grant the broad declaratory and remedial relief requested. The procedures adopted by the Superior Court—striking the pleadings of Mr. Hitti and 285 Spadina, dismissing the underlying Lease and Oppression applications when the applicants no longer wished to proceed, and enforcing the consequences of the vexatious litigant order—were left undisturbed. The successful party in this appellate motion decision was 2356802 Ontario Corp., which was awarded costs fixed in the amount of CAD $500, inclusive of taxes and disbursements, payable by Mr. Hitti and Ms. Farah; no damages or other monetary awards were granted, and the total amount ordered in favour of the successful party in this decision was therefore limited to $500 in costs.