Nunavut’s lawyer-versus-lawyer beef becomes a four-way pile-on

On Oct. 21, Justice Neil Sharkey, in a case that pits law firm Ahlstrom Wright Oliver & Cooper against law firm Budden Morris, will hear arguments on two competing motions to dismiss. One from lawyer representing Budden Morris, who asks that Ahlstrom Wright Oliver & Cooper’s lawsuit against his client be dismissed, and another from a lawyer representing Ahlstrom Wright Oliver & Cooper, who asks that Budden Morris’s motion to dismiss be itself dismissed. (FILE PHOTO)

And then there were four—groups of lawyers, that is—involved in the same legal case.

That case involves victims of sexual predator Ed Horne.

The victims, represented by Alan Regel from the law firm Ahlstrom Wright Oliver & Cooper, filed a civil suit in August 2015 at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Their former lawyers, from the law firm Budden, Morris, withheld some of the $15.5-million settlement reached in 2011 in the second of two massive settlements involving Horne’s victims, the victims alleged in their 2015 suit.

The Nunavut Law Society is investigating those allegations against Budden, Morris in a separate court proceeding.

But in August, Geoffrey Budden fought back: he hired lawyer James Morton, who filed a motion to dismiss the civil suit his client faced.

Morton denied that Budden acted negligently towards his clients, but if he did, Regel’s law firm made the same mistake, Morton alleged in his motion.

And now there’s more: On Sept. 28, Regel’s law firm hired a lawyer named Jonathan Rossall and filed a counter motion to dismiss Morton’s motion, according to the latest court documents.

A dense, complicated case continues to get more dense and complicated.

None of the above allegations have been proven in court.

Rossall asks the Nunavut court to dismiss Morton’s motion as “scandalous, frivolous and vexatious,” because it will “prejudice, embarrass and delay a fair trial,” and because it is “an abuse of the process of the Court.”

Alternatively, Rossall asked the court to find against Morton’s motion.

Rossall also asked the court to award his client, Ahlstrom Wright Oliver & Cooper, “solicitor-and-own-client costs.”

Those costs are on the higher side of what a court can impose and are meant, in part, to punish a lawyer for filing a frivolous motion.

In line with the complexity of this case, Rossall said his motion relies upon material in five other civil cases and a number of sworn affidavits.

All of this will come to a head on Oct. 21 at 9:30 a.m. in an Iqaluit courtroom when lawyers are scheduled to square off, on both Morton’s and Rossall’s motions.