He alleges improper schizophrenia medical assessment, being forced to take antipsychotic medication
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has issued a vexatious litigant order against a plaintiff who brought seven medical actions that essentially repeated each other and included claims revolving around the central issue of improper treatment and diagnosis of schizophrenia.
In Tipu v. Munchi, 2025 ONSC 3342, the plaintiff brought 16 legal proceedings in Ontario since 2017, plus at least one proceeding in the Quebec Superior Court. Seven of the 16 Ontario proceedings alleged medical negligence against his treating physicians.
Of the seven medical actions, Ontario courts dismissed two as vexatious, stayed another until a determination of the plaintiff’s capacity, and stalled three others at the pleadings stage as he had made no efforts to move these matters forward.
From 2015–22, the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT) was the plaintiff’s property guardian. Within that period, the plaintiff filed six of the seven medical actions regardless of his lack of legal status to do so.
In September 2024, in the present medical malpractice action (CV-17-494), the judge deemed the plaintiff a party under a disability and appointed the OPGT as his litigation guardian. However, even after that, the plaintiff continued directly communicating with the lawyers acting for the physicians he sued.
The doctors moved to declare the plaintiff a vexatious litigant and prohibit him from commencing or continuing any proceeding in courts subject to Ontario’s Courts of Justice Act, 1990, without first securing leave from an Ontario Superior Court judge.
The physicians alleged that each medical action had the hallmarks of vexatious proceedings. They claimed that the plaintiff:
- requested extraordinary amounts of damages, exceeding millions or billions of dollars
- made duplicative and repetitive pleadings
- used odd formatting and disjointed or rambling paragraphs
- referred to himself in the first or third person
- included largely unintelligible allegations
- added irrelevant or confusing attachments
The plaintiff did not respond to the doctors’ motion.
Vexatious litigant order
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed these actions as frivolous, vexatious, and abusive of process: CV-17-494 and CV-23-062 in Kingston, CV-19-626253 and CV-20-635619 in Toronto, and CV-22-805 in Brampton.
The court declared the plaintiff a vexatious litigant who persistently and baselessly initiated vexatious court proceedings and vexatiously conducted these proceedings under s. 140(1) of the Courts of Justice Act.
The court’s orders under s. 140(3) of the Courts of Justice Act:
- stayed all proceedings the plaintiff previously brought in any Ontario court that the court had not yet fully determined, except if he obtained leave from an Ontario Superior Court judge
- prohibited him from commencing or continuing any proceeding in any Ontario court, without leave from an Ontario Superior Court judge
The court explained that its s. 140 orders aimed to limit the costs spent by the legal system and other litigants due to the plaintiff’s behaviour.
Factors to weigh
The court noted that the ruling in Re Lang Michener and Fabian, 1987 CanLII 172 (ON SC), listed the factors to consider in deciding whether a litigant was vexatious. The court assessed the plaintiff’s acts against these considerations.
First, regarding whether a court had already determined the issues in this proceeding, the court ruled that the plaintiff was continuously relitigating already decided matters that fell beyond the court’s jurisdiction.
Second, on whether it was obvious the action could not succeed, the court said the plaintiff’s claim clearly should fail since it was largely unintelligible and disjointed, stated no reasonable cause of action, and requested exorbitant and unrealistic relief.
Third, regarding whether the plaintiff initiated the action for improper purposes, the court held that he brought multifarious proceedings for reasons beyond the legitimate assertion of his legal rights.
The court noted that the plaintiff filed numerous similar actions naming the same physicians as defendants. Specifically, he sued 15 doctors across seven medical actions and identified most of them as parties in more than one action.
Fourth, on whether the plaintiff raised repeated and supplemented issues, the court found the seven medical actions largely repetitive of one another. The court noted that his claims in these actions came down to the same allegations regarding an improper diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia and a prescription for anti-psychotic medication.
Fifth, regarding whether the entire history of the matter showed that the proceedings were vexatious, the court concluded that the plaintiff was a vexatious litigant, considering his pattern of behaviour throughout the litigation and his redundant, vague, and meritless claims.
