After more than a decade, vexatious lawsuit against Soo Greyhounds thrown out

An Ontario Superior Court of Justice building can be seen on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (Michelle Maluske/CTV Windsor)

After 12 years of being in and out of court, an Ontario judge has ended a Sault Ste. Marie man’s bizarre attempt to force the Soo Greyhounds to give him free tickets.

The case illustrates how any litigation can tie up court time and cost defendants money even when the case has no merit.

Christopher Beverley Newman, also known as Christopher Warren Bonin, launched seven separate court actions in 2012 "in which he sought either free hockey tickets or damages for the failure to provide free tickets to hockey games in Sault Ste. Marie," said the Superior Court of Justice decision.

A year later, he sued the Greyhounds and the Attorney General of Ontario, claiming that Ontario’s Human Rights Code violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms "because it did not compel the Greyhounds to provide him with free hockey tickets."

The Greyhounds brought a countersuit that sought to have Bonin declared a vexatious litigant – a legal term for someone who initiates court cases they know won’t be successful with the intent of embarrassing the group being sued or causing them unnecessary expense.

In 2014, the court threw out the seven court actions launched in 2012 and made procedural orders Bonin had to follow if he wanted to continue with the Charter complaint from 2013.

When he failed to respond, the court gave him an extension but also ordered him to pay the Greyhounds $1,000. He abandoned that suit in 2015.

But five years later, he tried to revive the case and have the Greyhound’s countersuit dismissed. That application was filed in December 2019.

Court dates were adjourned several times before landing in court again in August 2021.

"Over the objection of the Greyhounds, the matter was again adjourned at the request of the applicant," the court decision said.

"On consent, the presiding judge ordered that the application proceed in writing and imposed certain filing deadlines."

But, the judge in the case was unable to continue and the case was assigned to another judge.

"However, our region suffers from a serious shortage of judicial resources," the court decision said.

"As a result, priority was given to matters that are clearly not vexatious and this application is only being dealt with now."

In his decision, the judge ruled the case had many of the hallmarks of vexatious litigation.

"I believe that the absence of any merit to an application is itself a factor to consider in the abuse analysis," the judge wrote.

"I conclude that there are no reasonable grounds for the application."

Other grounds include the fact Bonin hasn’t paid the costs he has been ordered to by the court, the fact his submissions are consistently long and overly complicated (common in vexatious cases) and the motions he brings to court are about issues that have already been ruled on.

"In my view, this is exactly what is being attempted here," the decision said.

"More than five years after the 2014 order was made, the applicant is attempting to thwart the order and to drag the respondents back into the litigation mud."

Declaring the claims “an abuse of process” the judge dismissed the case and asked for submissions from the Greyhounds and Bonin on court costs.

"Submissions shall be limited to five typewritten pages, excluding attachments," the judge ordered.

"The applicant shall have 60 days within which to respond ... The court will not review submissions that do not comply with this direction."

Read the full decision.