Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Court considered whether special or egregious circumstances justified ordering an individual plaintiff to post security for costs despite access-to-justice concerns.

• The underlying defect and warranty claim was weakened by Mr. Perry’s failure to obtain expert evidence supporting his demand for a full engine replacement instead of piston-and-ring repairs.

• The litigation had become grossly disproportionate, with a modest consumer vehicle dispute expanding into a proposed 34-day trial and numerous repetitive, prolix interlocutory applications.

• Persistent, unproven allegations of fraud, spoliation, perjury, and judicial corruption indicated abusive litigation conduct and refusal to accept prior rulings.

• Mr. Perry’s history of bankruptcy, unpaid costs, and vexatious-style litigation in UK proceedings showed a real risk that any costs awards in this case would be unrecoverable.

• The court ordered $25,000 in security for costs, payable in four installments on pain of a stay, with the costs of the applications awarded to the defendants in the cause.

Facts and underlying dispute

Richard Perry bought a used 2013 GMC Terrain in October 2019 for $8,995, financed through the National Bank of Canada, with 113,500 km on the odometer. Shortly after purchase he took the vehicle to Dueck Richmond Chevrolet Buick Cadillac GMC Ltd. (Dueck) for service, where the dealership inspected it, changed the oil, and replaced the front rotors. Over the following months, he said the vehicle consumed oil excessively and developed shunting and shaking at low speeds, requiring repeated top-ups. In February 2020 he received a letter from General Motors of Canada Company (GMC) stating that the vehicle line was prone to excessive oil consumption and that GMC would replace piston rings if consumption was found excessive under a special coverage program, i.e., GMC offered a targeted piston-and-ring repair, not a blanket promise of full engine replacement. Mr. Perry returned to Dueck in March 2020 and was told oil consumption would need to be monitored over several visits to determine eligibility for warranty repairs, with another oil change performed at that time.

Escalation of allegations and expansion of claims

During subsequent monitoring visits, Mr. Perry alleged that Dueck falsified records to understate oil use, overfilled the engine to conceal true consumption, and scheduled unnecessary visits to frustrate warranty coverage. In August 2021 GMC offered to perform piston-and-ring repairs at no cost under the special coverage warranty, but Mr. Perry refused, insisting the entire engine had to be replaced. On September 15, 2021 he sued GMC and Dueck for breach of contract, breach of warranty, deceit, fraudulent misrepresentation, and conspiracy, originally seeking engine replacement or damages just over $40,000. A month later he started a related action against the selling dealer LGN, its principal, and the bank, alleging fraud in the sale and putting his total loss there at more than $35,000. By 2023, after amendments, his claims in both actions ballooned to over $250 million each and included serious accusations of fraud, forgery, perjury, concealment, and spoliation against the defendants and their counsel. Despite the age of the case, there were no examinations for discovery or expert reports; the litigation became dominated by repeated applications over document production, sanctions, and pleadings amendments.

Discovery rulings, case management, and conduct

Early on, the court ordered the defendants to provide additional records and information about servicing the vehicle and internal handling of Mr. Perry’s claim. Later, however, decisions by Fitzpatrick J. and Hoffman J. rejected most of Mr. Perry’s broader demands, found no evidentiary basis for many of his allegations, and upheld most of GMC’s privilege redactions, while advising Mr. Perry to move on to discoveries and trial preparation. Costs on several applications were awarded against him, and the Court of Appeal refused his applications for leave to appeal those interlocutory rulings, again awarding modest costs to the defendants. At a case planning conference, further interlocutory applications were restricted and a chambers hearing was scheduled to address remaining issues, reflecting concern over the volume and repetitiveness of his motions. Mr. Perry nonetheless unilaterally booked a 34-day trial for January 2026, later adjourned, and continued to file prolix materials, including a response to these applications that attempted to circumvent a page limit order by attaching a much longer argument as an affidavit exhibit. In his submissions he repeated accusations of spoliation, forgery, perjury, contempt, and even alleged attempts to corrupt the judiciary, which the court found were speculative and unproven.

Security for costs applications and legal test

In mid-2025, GMC and Dueck applied for an order that Mr. Perry post security for costs in the total amount of $25,000, payable in four monthly installments of $6,250, failing which the action would be stayed. They argued that he had no assets in British Columbia, that his claim was weak, that his conduct was abusive and would continue to drive up costs, and that his history in UK patent litigation—where his claims were found meritless, he was ordered to pay substantial costs, was bankrupted for non-payment, and was ultimately restricted from commencing new proceedings—showed a real risk that costs in this case would never be recovered. The court reviewed the law on security for costs against individuals, emphasizing that such orders are exceptional and require “special” or “egregious” circumstances because access to justice for impecunious plaintiffs is a core concern. Relevant factors included the merits of the claim, the plaintiff’s ability to pay, previous non-payment of costs, litigation conduct, and proportionality between the dispute and the scale of proceedings.

Court’s assessment of merits, proportionality, and risk

The judge treated the central substantive issue as whether Mr. Perry could insist on full engine replacement instead of accepting piston-and-ring repairs offered under the special coverage warranty. After more than four years, he had obtained no expert evidence to show that a piston-and-ring repair would be inadequate or harmful, which the court described as a major weakness in his case. At the same time, the litigation had become grossly disproportionate: a modest consumer dispute, originally quantified in the tens of thousands of dollars, had turned into sprawling allegations of vast conspiracies, claims in the hundreds of millions, and a proposed 34-day trial. While the court acknowledged some early shortcomings in the defendants’ document production, it found that Mr. Perry’s continuing efforts to relitigate discovery and to advance unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and judicial corruption had become the primary cause of delay and complexity. The judge also accepted that there was a serious likelihood the defendants would be unable to recover their costs if they ultimately prevailed, given Mr. Perry’s lack of local assets, his address of record being only a post office box, and his prior history of unpaid costs and bankruptcy abroad.

Outcome, successful parties, and financial orders

Balancing the risk of stifling Mr. Perry’s claim against the risk of unrecoverable and escalating costs to the defendants, the court held that the case presented sufficiently special and egregious circumstances to justify an order for security for costs against an individual plaintiff. Using draft bills of costs projecting recoverable costs for a 10-day trial at just under $60,000 as a reference point, the judge concluded that requiring $25,000 in security, payable in four equal monthly installments of $6,250, was appropriate and not merely nominal. The court allowed the applications and ordered that, if Mr. Perry fails to post this security as directed, his action will be stayed. The costs of the security for costs applications were awarded to the defendants “in the cause,” meaning the amount and ultimate responsibility for those costs will depend on the final outcome of the underlying litigation and cannot presently be quantified. On this application, the successful parties are General Motors of Canada Company and Dueck Richmond Chevrolet Buick Cadillac GMC Ltd., with security for costs fixed at $25,000 in their favour, but with no specific damages or final costs amounts determinable from this decision alone.