Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Plaintiff Yong Wang failed to appear for a 10-day jury trial scheduled to commence on June 1, 2026, leading to dismissal of the action.
• No physician opinion evidence was filed establishing a permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental, or psychological function, as required under s. 4.3 of O. Reg. 318/03 and s. 267.5 of the Insurance Act, RSO 1990, c. I.8.
• Earning capacity evidence — both before and after the accident — was entirely absent from the plaintiff's record.
• Out-of-pocket expenses were unsubstantiated, leaving no evidentiary basis on which a trier of fact could make a damages award.
• Prior judicial findings of vexatious conduct, including the plaintiff's persistent interlocutory steps, mass emails, and fraud accusations against defence counsel, supported a substantial indemnity costs award.
• Failure to attend multiple court proceedings — including the March 10, 2026 motion, the April 24, 2026 pre-trial conference, and the trial itself — reflected a pattern of non-participation by the plaintiff.

Facts of the case

The underlying action arises from a motor vehicle accident that occurred in 2010. Yong Wang commenced the proceeding in 2012 and was represented by counsel until 2016, after which he has been self-represented. The matter was struck from the trial list at least twice previously. On December 1, 2025, the parties appeared before Chalmers J. in CPC court, where a jury trial was scheduled for the June 2026 sittings and a pre-trial conference was set for April 24, 2026. The plaintiff appeared virtually on that occasion and did not object to the defendant's draft expert report schedule, which the court approved.

As the trial date approached, the plaintiff failed to attend the motion heard by DesRosiers J. on March 10, 2026, despite having been served with materials and reminded of the court date by defence counsel. He also failed to appear at the April 24, 2026 pre-trial conference. On May 25, 2026, the plaintiff posted his Response to Request to Admit on the Trial Documents bundle in Case Center, and on May 28, 2026, all six of his email addresses were notified that Justice Schabas had been assigned as trial judge. On May 29, 2026, the defendant served and filed a motion to dismiss the action on evidentiary grounds.

Statutory and regulatory requirements at issue

The defendant's motion identified three evidentiary deficiencies. First, the plaintiff had filed no physician opinion evidence that he sustained a "permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental or psychological function," as required by s. 4.3 of O. Reg. 318/03 to meet the threshold under s. 267.5 of the Insurance Act, RSO 1990, c. I.8. Second, the plaintiff produced no evidence of his earning capacity before or after the accident, which the court noted would have required a trier of fact to "speculate and pull a dollar figure out of thin air," citing Johnston v Walker, 2017 ONSC 3370 at para. 10. Third, there was no evidence of out-of-pocket expenses on which a damages award could be based. The plaintiff had been put on notice of all three deficiencies in the defendant's pre-trial memorandum.

Court's reasoning and analysis

When the trial was called on the morning of June 1, 2026, the plaintiff had not attended as of 10:20 a.m. Instead, Justice Schabas received two identical emails from the plaintiff, sent from different email addresses and also addressed to Chalmers J., trial office staff, and Christine Zander at Aviva — but notably not to defence counsel. Defence counsel described the email as the plaintiff's "standard email," which he had been sending from six different addresses for the past seven months, and characterized it as an "incoherent compilation" of motions and interlocutory steps with assertions that they were "invalid." The court agreed with that characterization.

Justice Schabas found it clear that the plaintiff knew the trial was to begin that day — he had recently posted material to Case Center, had been notified of the assigned trial judge, and defence counsel had emailed him daily in the lead-up to trial. The court concluded that the plaintiff had chosen not to attend, and characterized the non-attendance as the latest step in a pattern of vexatious conduct. In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on the earlier findings of DesRosiers J., who in Wang v Banton, 2026 ONSC 1553 (released March 13, 2026) had found the plaintiff vexatious in his persistent appeals and his conduct of flooding defence counsel's inbox, and had ordered that the plaintiff not institute further proceedings or appeals without leave of a judge of the Superior Court. The court also noted that the plaintiff had spent at least four years bombarding counsel and others with emails, had accused defence counsel of fraud before Justices DesRosiers, O'Brien, and three judges of the Court of Appeal, and had failed to pursue his outstanding Divisional Court motion appropriately.

Ruling and overall outcome

Justice Schabas dismissed the action on two independent grounds: the plaintiff's failure to attend trial, and the complete absence of evidence necessary to sustain the claim. The defendant, Christopher Banton, was the successful party. On the question of costs, the court found that substantial indemnity costs were appropriate given the plaintiff's vexatious conduct throughout the litigation. The defendant sought costs of $100,084.61 for the action, noting that a further $16,896.63 in costs from prior interlocutory orders remained outstanding. The court awarded costs of the action to the defendant in the amount of $100,000, in addition to the previously outstanding costs orders that the plaintiff remains obligated to pay. The court further ordered that the plaintiff may only communicate with the defendant or the court by delivering hard copy materials, prohibiting him from sending emails to defence counsel or to the court — including any steps he may wish to take to review or appeal the dismissal.