Friday, January 06, 2012

Of rocks, and the slimy things hiding underneath -- the Patrick Ross saga.


Back here, Rev. Paperboy asks:


What sort of fun and games are going to ensue (no pun intended) when the proper rock is lifted and Patsy scuttles out into the daylight?


I am not a lawyer and I would prefer not to speculate so I'll recap and let others with the appropriate legal beagle expertise weigh in. What follows are the simple facts.

On, November 23, 2010, defendant and U of Alberta student Patrick Ross, having weirdly chosen to not defend himself against a properly-served Statement of Claim, was found guilty in an Ontario court not merely of defamation, but of "clearly malicious" defamation:



(This default judgment was apparently "unrecorded" "unreported" which is why it doesn't appear in the normal legal databases or online, but you're welcome to view a confirmation of the judgment here if you refuse to take my word for it.)

(Aside: Thanks to commenter Holly Stick for pointing out the typo above, and for the link to an explanation.)

As one can read, in addition to the whopping $85,000 (and accumulating) penalty levied against him, Patrick Ross was ordered to, within 15 days, remove all posts that "in any way" referred to me from his blog, the appropriately-named "Nexus of Assholery." Even though Patrick Ross was clearly aware of the judgment within hours of its posting that day, he did nothing.

After months of being elusive, Patrick Ross was finally located and personally served with a copy of the judgment on April 29, 2011:



which meant that, as I understand it, the 15-day deadline for Patrick Ross to take action finally started. But that's not all.

As you can see from that affidavit, malicious defamer Patrick Ross was simultaneously served with a Financial Statement of Debtor form, which requires him to list in agonizing detail his financial assets and liabilities. Conveniently, that form also has a hard, legal 15-day deadline to be filled and returned, implying of course that Patrick Ross had until mid-May of last year to both a) cleanse his blog of all posts referring to me in any way, and b) return an accurate and complete Statement of Debtor form to my lawyer in Alberta.

As of today, Jan 6, 2012 (some eight months later), malicious defamer Patrick Ross has done absolutely nothing in the way of fulfilling his legal obligations (even after proper and legal service). He has paid me nothing, and never removed a single one of the 200+ blog posts that were covered under the order of the judgment. (After being more than patient, I approached Blogger Support with a copy of the judgment and worked with them to remove all infringing posts. Those posts are now gone, no thanks to Patrick Ross.)

In addition, malicious defamer Patrick Ross has never filled in and returned the legally-required Financial Statement of Debtor form to my Alberta lawyer, despite having promised by e-mail to do so.

In short, despite having been personally and properly served in April of last year with both the judgment itself and the Statement of Debtor form (both of which had clearly-marked, 15-day legal deadlines), malicious defamer Patrick Ross has done nothing and, to this day, remains in hiding and refuses to reply to phone calls and e-mails from my lawyer. (At this point, I would normally make a joke about "Law and Order" conservatives always lecturing us about "accountability" and "personal responsibility" but I suspect that would just be cruel.)

Given the situation as I have described it, armchair lawyers are now free to speculate.

P.S. To answer a couple earlier questions, no, I am not returning to blogging. The only purpose of these recent posts is to try to bring the Patrick Ross issue to a close. Once he's located and dragged before a judge, I will finish things off with a report on how it went, and there will be single malt scotch for everyone, and that will be it.

And if you want to know how it ends, feel free to help locate Patrick Ross and turn him in so that it ends just a little bit sooner. :-)

P.P.S. Given how much effort Patrick Ross put into defaming and libeling me online and sullying my reputation, it would seem that turnabout is slowly becoming fair play.

P.P.P.S. I leave as an exercise for the reader to identify the pants-crapping irony here.

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