Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Two plaintiffs sought leave to discontinue their claims against Inga Zane after one alleged that a joint venture agreement had assigned control of the litigation to a third company.
   
• Gregory Rohland opposed the discontinuance, arguing that Oregon Management Inc. held a security interest in the proceeds under a previously undisclosed joint venture agreement.
   
• Justice Coval questioned the authenticity of the joint venture agreement and related documents, citing their late production, an internal inconsistency in the record as to its signing date, and Michael Rohland's sworn denial that he signed it.
   
• Corporate records from Utah showed Michael Rohland as SAS's sole managing member, undermining Greg Rohland's claimed authority to control the litigation on its behalf.
   
• Months later, Oregon Management Inc. sought leave to file a third amended pleading recasting itself, rather than Structured Annuity Solutions LLC, as the party that had contracted with Ms. Zane.
   
• Justice Funt found this shift inconsistent with prior pleadings and dismissed Oregon Management Inc.'s action as an abuse of process.
   

Facts of the case

Structured Annuity Solutions LLC ("SAS"), Oregon Management Inc. ("OM"), and Michael Rohland sued Inga Zane over a property she has owned on Bowen Island since 2016. The plaintiffs alleged that Michael Rohland gave Ms. Zane $110,000 toward the purchase price in exchange for an 18% interest, that he later assigned this interest to SAS, and that SAS and OM together provided close to $1 million in labour, supplies, and equipment for construction on the property, much of it unpaid. Ms. Zane denied ever agreeing to an equity interest, maintaining instead that $110,000 had been loaned to her mother, and that she had separately settled with OM for $15,000 for work performed on the property.

Michael Rohland and SAS applied to discontinue their claims, a request Ms. Zane supported. Gregory Rohland, Michael's brother and a director of OM, opposed the application. He relied on a joint venture agreement ("JVA") under which he claimed SAS and Michael Rohland had assigned their litigation interests to OM and given him authority to act for them. The record contains conflicting dates for when the JVA was purportedly signed: one part of the decision states June 21, 2023, while another states January 21, 2023 — a discrepancy in the source document itself. Michael Rohland disputed ever seeing or signing the JVA, describing it and related documents as fraudulent. The litigation's history included multiple certificates of pending litigation registered and cancelled against Ms. Zane's property, prior costs orders against the plaintiffs and Gregory Rohland totalling $4,830.90, $1,500, and $4,703.56 that remained unpaid, and a $65,000 security-for-costs order. Gregory Rohland is an undischarged bankrupt owing roughly $16 million, and he was convicted in June 2025 of obtaining property over $5,000 by false pretenses involving forged documents.

After Justice Coval granted the discontinuance to SAS and Michael Rohland on February 20, 2026, OM remained the sole plaintiff. In June 2026, OM applied to file a Third Amended Notice of Civil Claim recasting itself, rather than SAS, as the party that had directly contracted with Ms. Zane for construction and occupancy-related work, and asserting claims of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit. Ms. Zane applied to strike OM's claim entirely as an abuse of process.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The discontinuance application turned on Rule 9-8(2) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules, under which a plaintiff wishing to discontinue an action after a trial certificate is filed requires either consent of all parties or leave of the court.

The abuse of process application engaged several provisions. Rule 1-3 sets out the object of the Rules: "to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every proceeding on its merits," including proportionality to the amount involved, the importance of the issues, and the complexity of the proceeding. Rule 9-5(1)(d) allows the court to strike or amend a pleading, and stay or dismiss a proceeding, where it "is otherwise an abuse of the process of the court." Rule 3-7(6) provides that "a party must not plead an allegation of fact or a new ground or claim inconsistent with the party's previous pleading," while Rule 3-7(7) preserves a party's right to plead in the alternative or seek leave to amend. Rule 6-1(1)(a), permitting one amendment without leave before a notice of trial is served, was also referenced but did not assist OM given its earlier amendment in September 2021.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Coval balanced the rights and interests of all parties in reaching his decision on discontinuance. He found that denying discontinuance would force another adjournment of the scheduled trial, since Michael Rohland and SAS could not proceed aligned with OM while at odds over who controlled SAS. He considered it unfair and prejudicial to Ms. Zane and to TCC Mortgage Holdings Inc. for Greg Rohland to produce the JVA at such a late stage, particularly where earlier court-ordered document production in 2024 and 2025 had yielded no mention of the JVA, the power of attorney, or Greg Rohland's claimed managerial role. He also noted a history of abuse of process concerning certificates of pending litigation, unpaid costs orders, and reasons to doubt the JVA's authenticity, including Michael Rohland's sworn denial, Greg Rohland's refusal to produce supporting drafts or correspondence, an expert handwriting report suggesting forgery on a related contract, and Greg Rohland's 2025 conviction for obtaining property by false pretenses involving forged documents. Corporate records from Utah confirmed Michael Rohland as SAS's sole managing member, giving him authority to bind it and to represent himself.

In the later ruling, Justice Funt applied the principle from Mercantile Office Systems Private Limited v. Worldwide Warranty Life Services Inc., 2021 BCCA 362, that pleadings are foundational to the litigation process and give effect to the Rules' policy objectives. He found that OM's proposed Third Amended Notice of Civil Claim sought to plead facts inconsistent with its prior pleadings, contrary to Rule 3-7(6), by recasting OM as the contracting party after nearly five years of litigation in which SAS had consistently been described as the company that contracted with Ms. Zane. He noted that the effluxion of time is generally prejudicial to a defendant, that Gregory Rohland was an experienced businessperson who could have pleaded the claim accurately from the outset, and that granting leave would cause significant prejudice to Ms. Zane.

Ruling and overall outcome

In the February 2026 decision, Justice Coval granted Michael Rohland and SAS leave to discontinue their claims against Inga Zane, cancelled the certificate of pending litigation against her property, and granted related orders sought by defendant's counsel, with the successful parties being Michael Rohland, SAS, and Ms. Zane. In the subsequent July 2026 decision, Justice Funt refused OM leave to file its Third Amended Notice of Civil Claim, granted Ms. Zane's application to strike the Second Amended Notice of Civil Claim, and dismissed OM's action in its entirety as an abuse of process. Ms. Zane was the successful party in this final ruling. Neither decision specifies a monetary amount awarded to Ms. Zane; the source documents reference prior unpaid costs orders from earlier stages of the litigation, but no new monetary award is quantified in either decision under review.