We are now potentially within the window where undischarged bankrupt and boy lawyer Patrick "I'll take double fries instead of a salad" Ross has blown the deadline to file and serve a proper Response Affidavit related to my Rule 4.33 Application:
So we are now left to wonder what Patrick plans to do, and I'm taking predictions. Will Patrick ...
- Wait until the last possible minute, then email a chaotic, meandering and unsworn Response Affidavit to my lawyer, and demand that it be heard in court?
- Wait until the last possible minute, then file an irrelevant application of his own, like a Rule 3.68 motion, and demand that it be heard in court?
- Wait until the last possible minute, then announce that he just hired a lawyer who needs an extension to get up to speed on the case?
- Wait until the last possible minute, then withdraw his idiotic lawsuit to avoid having to attend a hearing at all?
I'm open to other possibilities; lines are open and operators are standing by to mock you.
REMINDER: I've harped on this many times, but it's worth repeating ... a Rule 4.33 Application (like mine) to dismiss a lawsuit due to long delay has absolutely nothing to do with the merit of the underlying lawsuit. Nothing. So when it comes to Patrick bragging as to how his long-dormant action is "extremely-meritorious" (it isn't):
that is hilariously irrelevant, since all that matters is that it has not progressed in over three years; the underlying "merit" has no relevance here:
Ideally, the upcoming hearing on August 20 should consist of little more than:
Judge: "Mr. Ross, have you made any significant advancement in your case in the last three years?"
Patrick: "Well, no, but it's extremely-meritorious ..."
Judge: "We're done here."
That's it; that's all it should take. So I guess we'll see what happens and how Patrick manages to embarrass himself yet again.
GOOGLE AI AGAIN: I again asked Google about Rule 3.68 being used to defeat Rule 4.33, and Google AI was fairly clear that that approach was bound to fail (note the clear property of no judicial discretion):
It's not clear how one might accuse my Application of being a "fraudulent abuse of process" since the entire Application says little more than, "It's been over three years with nothing happening, it needs to be dismissed." Such an Application puts the burden of proof squarely on Patrick Ross to prove that there has been significant advancement, and I don't see how he can do that since, well, there hasn't been.
In any event, I guess we will learn all in the next 10 days.
BONUS TRACK: My first commenter makes the clearly facetious suggestion that Patrick will point at my recent blog posts related to my Rule 4.33 Application, and insist that those posts constitute some sort of advancement of his lawsuit because I am, in some way, "engaging" with him or something equally vacuous.
I'm hoping that my regular readers understand by now that that's not an option since the "significant advancement" of an action with respect to Rule 4.33 is fairly well-defined, and does not include random blog posts simply talking about it:
Note in the above that even some actual legal filings don't count as significant advancement since they do not move the lawsuit forward in any "meaningful way." In over three years, there has been no substantive exchanges, narrowing of issues or measurable progress of any kind and, again, the burden of proof falls squarely on Patrick to prove otherwise.
WHAT IF PATRICK DROPS THE LAWSUIT? I discussed this before, but if Patrick -- only days before the hearing -- decides to drop his meritless lawsuit, that could be considered an abuse of process by the Court:
In fact, I already have official correspondence from Patrick assuring me that he will be attending the hearing on August 20, so if he cancels at the last minute, I will absolutely be putting his written assurance before the Court and arguing for abuse of process on his part.
At this point, Patrick does not have many options left, and all of them are bad.
5 comments:
Based on what I've read here and knowing how Patrick thinks, my prediction is that he's going to argue that there has been significant advancement in the last three years and as proof he's going to point to your blog posts as proof that you've been engaging with him and that that counts as "advancement".
I'm sure your blog posts don't qualify as advancement for Patrick, but I've seen his weird logic before so that's my prediction.
I didn't know about that last part. You mean Patrick can get spanked by the court even if he drops the lawsuit? That's hilarious.
Anon @ 6:23 AM: Yeah, that's adorable, isn't it? Given that I have correspondence from Patrick both assuring me that he will attend the August 20 hearing and also that he's going to win that hearing, if he drops the lawsuit now, I can easily argue that Patrick misled me in assuring me that he was sincerely going to contest that hearing (forcing me to invest time and money to prepare for it), only to bail days before.
Also, as you can read, it would be even worse for Patrick if he withdrew his lawsuit this close to the hearing, only to turn around and re-file the same lawsuit just for the purpose of restarting the clock. It's safe to say that the court would be mightily pissed with Patrick if he did that.
This close to the hearing, Patrick is really out of strategies.
If he were to invoke rule 4.36 and withdraw his claim, he would likely play possum for 6 months or so and then file a revised claim. I would imagine at that point, you might have cause to petition the court to “dismiss with prejudice” as the claim is substantially the one previously withdrawn.
If he was feeling particularly clever, he might drop some of the older allegations while tacking on newer events to create the appearance of being a new claim.
Anon @ 9:27 AM: That's a cute idea but here's Patrick's problem. First, he would not be able to use *any* of the claims from his original lawsuit, since that was filed in August of 2022, which means every single accusation in it would be at least four years old by now, and Patrick *very* stupidly admitted in a letter dated July 18 that (and I quote), "the Alberta Limitations Act in general imposes a two-year period within which an action must be commenced."
Let me say that again slowly -- I already have a written admission from Patrick that he *knows* that he cannot sue me for anything older than two years. In fact, it gets worse for Patrick but that is something I'm going to keep to myself for now. At least for the next 10 days.
P.S. I'm reasonably confident that I've published very little allegedly defamatory in the last two years; simply mocking Patrick for not moving along his own lawsuit is not defamatory. But he knows that.
Post a Comment