2021 QCCA 1046, 2021 QCCA 1046

Obodzinski c. Succession de Piela 2021 QCCA 1046 COURT OF APPEAL CANADA PROVINCE OF QUEBEC REGISTRY OF MONTREAL No.: 500-09-029149-200 (500-17-096485-167) DATE: June 17, 2021 BEFORE THE HONOURABLE MARTIN VAUCLAIR, J.A. ANITA OBODZINSKI ARTHUR Trzciakowski APPLICANTS – Defendants v.

Viacheslav Goriunov, in his capacity as liquidator of the estate of the late Veronica Kalimbet Piela RESPONDENT – Plaintiff and LINDSAY GOLDSMITH CHARLES GELBER ALISSA KERNER IMPLEADED PARTIES – Defendants JUDGMENT [ 1 ] The applicants, Anita Obodzinski and Arthur Trzciakowski, seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada from a judgment of this Court rendered on March 18, 2021, which granted an application to dismiss their appeal from a judgment of the Quebec Superior Court and dismissed such appeal ( 2021 QCCA 449 ). [ 2 ] The Court set out the context of the appeal: [2] The judgment under appeal, which was rendered on April 16, 2020, following an 18-day hearing, condemned the Appellants along with other defendants, namely a social worker and her lawyer husband, to pay compensatory, moral and punitive damages to the Estate of the late Veronika Piela following their abuse of the elderly woman.

Appellant Obodzinski was also condemned to pay the legal fees and expenses of the Estate. [3] The acts of abuse committed by the Appellants consisted in fabricating a false mandate in anticipation of Mrs.

Piela’s incapacity, obtaining a court judgment homologating the counterfeit mandate, siphoning out the entirety of the elderly woman’s bank account savings (totalling $474,000), breaking into her home, fraudulently obtaining a court order forcibly removing her from her dwelling and transporting her to a seniors’ residence where she was not to have any visitors or phone calls. [ 3 ] The trial judge wrote 76 pages to explain his findings. After reviewing the reasons and the notice of appeal, the Court concluded: [11] The Appellants raise the same arguments which were set aside by the trial judge.

None stand any reasonable chance of success in appeal in light of the applicable standard of review. [12] Moreover, the Court of Appeal is not the proper forum to address the attacks or allegations of contempt, professional misconduct or exhibit-tampering raised against the Respondent’s attorney in the Appellants’ oral arguments. The Court’s conclusion regarding the dismissal of the appeal is based on the weakness of the Notice of Appeal, without resorting to any other exhibits filed in support of the Respondent’s Motion to Dismiss. [ 4 ] Pursuant to

section 65.1 of the Supreme Court Act , RSC, 1985, c. S-26 , and

article 390 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Quebec , the applicants request that I stay the effect of the judgment of this Court pending a decision by the Supreme Court on their application for leave to appeal. [ 5 ] At paragraphs 4 and 5 of their application to suspend, the applicants present the grounds for their proposed appeal to the Supreme Court and why a stay should be granted: 4. The Appellants will present to the Supreme Court the following questions:

— When there is contempt for the Principle of the Rule of Law there can never be a Fair Trial, as a cause the constitutionally guaranteedrights of the Appellants have been eviscerated and Canada’s international obligations to the Principle of the Rule of Law and to theProtection of Civil Rights have been abrogated - Canada is bound by its own Constitution and cannot arbitrarily abuse this in what hasnow become a full-on assault on Democracy and the Law itself. Canada’s standing in the international legal community has beenseriously compromised.

Remedy must be sought to restore public confidence in the judicial system which is being sorely tested as ofnow.

Violation of the Rule of Law which is a central principle of our Constitution was transgressed: wherein the Rule of Law, being adoctrine that supplies normative principles and requires compliance with at least certain minimal principles deemed fundamental to thelegal system, was so severely violated that it created a parallel reality of arbitrary unlimited power where common law principles andcivil rights were consistently and blatantly thrown out the window, cavalierly dealt with and eviscerated, and led to a predeterminedfinale rather than on its merits, a fait accompli if you will, based heavily and almost exclusively on opinion from Fourth Estateopinionated false narratives (in the context of the court of public opinion driven to the utmost and highest degree with direct andshameless input and complicity of the Respondent parties and their representative designed to inflict maximum harm and terror via aprotracted 8 year one-sided legal battle filled with unlawful behaviour and heinous acts in order to win at all costs), ignored facts,witnesses and evidence that were not in keeping with this predetermination, and unfairly deprived the Appellants of their constitutionallyguaranteed Right to a Fair Trial and their Civil Rights.

Furthermore, when a Motion to Dismiss is accorded to be heard and yet is neverso done, instead erroneously and dismissively said to be in closing arguments, in the context of Respondent’s barrister’s bad faithconduct (which the Supreme Court of Canada held in Finney v Barreau du Quebec, 2004, includes not only intentional fault but alsoserious carelessness or recklessness amounting to a “fundamental breakdown of the orderly exercise of authority” or “an actual abuse ofpower”) then indeed, the entire legal proceeding was so contrary to the Rule of Law that it can surely be declared to be unconstitutional. 5.

The Appellants asks this Court to suspend the execution of its judgment (schedule II) for the following reasons: This is one of the rare cases where the Rule of Law concept creates the Constitutional Standard to which legal rules must conform: theAppellants case exposes the egregious violation of the Rule of Law and extreme transgression of the Right to a Fair Trial which wereparticularly distorted and completely absent in the Appellants’ case - the entirety which undermines the Paramountcy doctrine.

Whereinthe Supreme Court of Canada explained (re Proposed Resolution Respecting the Constitution of Canada, 1981) that “The Rule of Law isa highly textured expression ... conveying, for example, a sense of orderliness, of subjection to known legal rules and of executiveaccountability to legal authority” the Court (Manitoba Language Rights, 1985) established as a second branch of the rule of law doctrinethat “the rule of law requires the creation and maintenance of an actual order of positive laws which preserves and embodies the moregeneral principle of normative order”.

Furthermore, a third aspect of the rule of law doctrine was established in the Provincial JudgesReference, [1997] and the Secession Reference, [1998]: in these cases the Supreme Court attributed to the rule of law doctrine therequirement that “ ‘the exercise of all public power must find its ultimate source in a legal rule’.

Put another way, the relationshipbetween the state and the individual must be regulated by law.” The Court went on to note that, taken together, the three branches of therule of law doctrine “make up a principle of profound constitutional and political significance;” (Secession Reference, para. 71).

In sounfairly depriving the Appellants of all of the above they were unconscionably disenfranchised, their rights egregiously abrogated andnever had a chance of a Fair Trial, not to mention additional harm in having language rights absconded with and discrimination againsttheir ethnicity within the context of the Respondent’s bad faith conduct including suborning perjury, and instead have been unfairly andprejudicially condemned to pay an exhorbitant sum in damages which the Appellants as a family including a minor child cannot in anyway, shape or form afford to pay in the context of the vicious legal assault brought on by the Respondent’s barrister in protractedongoing constant legal proceedings (for his personal gain and enrichment in his role as beneficiary and executor of the Plaintiff’s last willand testament that was acknowledged by her) without end of 8 years now and counting, without any regard for the Principle of the Ruleof Law, without hearing the Appellants’ actual Appeal and in blatant disregard of the Plaintiff’s own words under oath in front of JusticeJoelle Roy on November 30, 2016 (Transcript thereof as

Schedule III), prior to her death, and further supported and underlined in keyfresh testimony in November 2019 in front of Justice Morrisson, without even a semblance of a Fair Trial nor recourse and against theprinciples of Access to Justice and the Principle of Proportionality. The whole which undermines and violates Common Law and theParamountcy Doctrine. [6] The criteria for a stay are well established and do not require extensive development (see, notably, RJR - MacDonald Inc. v.Canada (Attorney General), (SCC), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 311.

I must base my decision on the strength or seriousness of theapplicants’ proposed appeal, the serious prejudice caused to the applicants unless the stay is ordered, and the balance of inconvenienceand public interest considerations. [7] A stay of execution is not automatic. The case must be sufficiently serious to merit a stay: see, recently, Services immobiliersAsgaard inc. c. Gareau, 2021 QCCA 346 (Baudouin, J.A.). I am mindful that the threshold is not high, but the applicants have notconvinced me that the questions raised against the Court’s decision are serious.

I am also mindful of the trial’s judge reasons for notordering provisional execution notwithstanding appeal. [8] Despite the efforts of the applicants at the hearing to convince me to grant the application, I conclude that a stay is not warrantedin view of the case before me. At this point, the applicants are relying on conclusory statements to assert prejudice. I must also considerthe interests of the respondent, who legitimately has a need to bring this case to a close.

In this context, given the decision of the Courtthat is the subject of the application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court and given the weakness of the proposed appeal, the balanceof inconvenience and public interest considerations weigh in favour of dismissing the application. FOR THESE REASONS, the undersigned: [9] DISMISSES the application to suspend provisional execution of the judgment; [10] THE WHOLE with legal costs. MARTIN VAUCLAIR, J.A.

Anita Obodzinski Arthur Trzciakowski Unrepresented Mtre Igor Dogaru For Respondent Mtre Karine Joizil MC CARTHY TÉTRAULT For the impleaded party Lindsay Goldsmith Charles Gelber Unrepresented Date of hearing: June 15, 2021