Some updates in the Joanne St. Lewis v. Denis Rancourt defamation lawsuit are as follows.
A chronological list of Court documents is HERE.
After Mandatory Mediation the Plaintiff (St. Lewis) served a motion to force summary judgement and to stop examinations for discovery.
The motion hearing resulted in the case being assigned by consent to Case Management. The Plaintiff dropped her summary judgement demand and now wants a 7 to 10 day trial.
The Plaintiff stopped opposing discovery and now wants discovery in parallel with a Defendant's (Rancourt) motion to stay or dismiss the action.
The Defendant's motion to stay or dismiss is based on alleged maintenance and champerty; or improper funding by the University of Ottawa of the Plaintiff's private lawsuit.
In opposing the champerty motion, university president Allan Rock has provided an affidavit (see 2012-02-21 entry HERE) explaining that he made the decision to fund the Plaintiff's legal costs to sue Rancourt.
The dean of the faculty of common law Bruce Feldthusen has provided an affidavit explaining his role (HERE).
The Plaintiff has provided an affidavit (HERE) explaining how she obtained university funding and why she wants Rancourt to pay $125 thousand in punitive costs to a university scholarship:
"The reason I will donate half of any punitive damages that may be awarded against the Defendant to the Danny Glover Routes To Freedom Graduate Law Student Scholarship fund is to create a record that the Defendant was held to account to the Black community for his destructive use of Black History Month and for his racial slur that I acted as a "house negro" to the President of the University of Ottawa."
All affiants are expected to be cross-examined out-of-court before an officer of the Court.
Rancourt has served a motion (HERE) for the out-of-court cross-examinations to be subject to the open court principle guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This would give public and media access to all out-of-court examinations of affiants and witnesses.
The Case Management Judge did not allow Rancourt's open court motion to be filed with the Court and heard on its merits: Judge's decision HERE.
Rancourt has asked for Leave to Appeal the Judge's decision: HERE.
Rancourt has filed a motion (HERE) to stay all out-of-court cross-examinations until his appeal for open court is determined.
Oh, and the University of Ottawa has been granted party status to intervene in Rancourt's champerty motion. Self-represented Rancourt is therefore opposed by two legal teams from two of the largest law firms in Canada, all paid for with student tuition and public money, in the interest of access to justice.
See the chronological list of Court documents HERE.
As background, all related posts about the lawsuit are HERE.
Links to all pleadings and court documents in the lawsuit are HERE.
Links to all pleadings and court documents in the lawsuit are HERE.
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