A lawyer who can’t stop suing

Trained lawyer and vexatious litigant Mokua Gichuru has B.C. judges all but pulling their hair out trying to deal with his habit of wielding the legal system as a weapon.

Although he has been embroiled in various proceedings for 15 years, those in charge haven’t been able to stop his avalanche of litigation and complaints.

Recently, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal refused to reconsider its 2017 rejection of his complaint that a swing dance club discriminated against him as an older black man and banned him for being “creepy.”

And in January B.C. Supreme Court Judge Joel Groves threw up his hands, refusing to deal with him again.

Now the B.C. Court of Appeal has decreed Groves got it right when he first met Gichuru in court a year ago.

“Mr. Gichuru, because of his legal training, has the ability to litigate at no cost to him other than his time,” said Groves in 2017.

He excoriated the “nonpractising” lawyer for wanting his day in court but refusing to be responsible for his losses — an individual “who uses litigation as a weapon or litigates for sport or profit.”

Writing for the unanimous appeal panel, Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick agreed with Groves’ assessment and the need to curtail Gichuru’s use of the courts given the number and size of the cost awards outstanding against him, his abuse or purposeful flouting of the rules and his litigious personality.

“In the judge’s words, it is inappropriate ‘to allow an individual to wreak havoc on those he is in litigation with when he chooses to do so,’ while at the same time ignoring cost obligations when he is unsuccessful,” said Kirkpatrick, supported by Justices Elizabeth Bennett and David Harris.

After obtaining an MD and also a master of health sciences degree in Ontario, Gichuru moved to B.C. to attend the University of Victoria law school in 1995.

When he first applied to practise law in 1998, he acknowledged that he had been treated for major depression. He graduated in 2001, taking longer than usual because of his illness.

Fired from an articling position in 2002, he sued.

Now 52, he ceased to be a practising member of the Law Society in 2009 but since launching litigation over the loss of his job, he has filed numerous actions, applications and complaints to the Residential Tenancy Board, Human Rights Tribunal, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.

Five years ago, Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair, who found him an unreliable witness, concluded he was properly dismissed more than a decade earlier for insubordination.

Gichuru has not been deterred by losing.

He sued a neighbouring café for making too much noise and his claim was dismissed. He took his landlord to the Human Rights Tribunal over the noise, too. It, too, dismissed the complaint.

When Gichuru was served with an eviction notice, he filed two applications for judicial review at the tenancy board, both of which were successful, and eventually he settled with the landlord to move out for a modest payment.

He then sued for defamation, lost and double costs were awarded against him.

Groves said enough is enough last year.

“He does not want to deal with the consequences of his litigation, which are orders for costs, which he ignores, in this case for four or five years, and frankly he proceeds on his merry way using the resources of the court and ignoring the obligations that he has to pay for costs to parties that he has forced into court and has been unsuccessful against,” Groves said.

He restricted Gichuru’s ability to litigate and assessed special costs against him for reprehensible conduct.

Kirkpatrick agreed that Gichuru needed to be constrained from filing actions without leave of the court and until he has paid all cost orders — including the costs of this appeal.

But she said Groves didn’t give Gichuru a fair chance to respond to the accusation of misconduct.

“Accordingly, I would set aside the order for special costs,” she said. “I would, however, substitute an order of costs at Scale B against Mr. Gichuru as the unsuccessful party.”

Still, Gichuru has other cases in the pipeline.

There is the litigation involving another Human Rights decision and another defamation action that Groves refused to deal with in January.

“Having heard Mr. Gichuru this afternoon, I have lost my patience with him and his complete failure to address the issues raised by the court,” Groves said.

“He has refused to follow the directions of the court in terms of his submissions. He is argumentative. He has accused me of yelling at him. He is doing everything he can to not let me adjudicate the matter on its merits.”

Groves thought it best to let another judge deal with the case and a trial is set for April.

Nevertheless, he again rebuked Gichuru with another special costs award for “simply causing litigation discomfort or expense to a party he opposes. … He is simply running up costs for her. In my view, Mr. Gichuru’s actions today constitute reprehensible conduct.”

Gichuru, who said he never admitted to being litigious, is appealing the January rulings.

He noted that he felt constrained in what he could say “because of my ethical obligations as a lawyer,” adding he also intends to apply for leave to appeal the panel’s judgment to the Supreme Court of Canada.

HE HAS REFUSED TO FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS OF THE COURT.