Ottawa CAS Charges Reinstated

March 9, 2011 permalink

John Dunn's action against Ottawa CAS for failing to turn over their membership list in accordance with Ontario law has been reinstated on appeal. The action was dismissed on December 1 because John Dunn showed up in the courtroom at 9:20 instead of the scheduled 9:00. The appeal was successful because Dunn was in the building at 9:00, but the court failed to page him.

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Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Appeal Successful in Children's Aid Society Of Ottawa Charges Case

To ensure you read the latest version of this post, please visit http://www.fostercarenews.blogspot.com as this post may have been modified since being sent out.

On December 1st, 2010, Corporations Act charges against the Ottawa CAS and it's executive Director Barbara MacKinnon were dismissed by a Justice of the Peace after the defendants counsel properly asked the court to dismiss the charges because the private citizen prosecutor, John Dunn was not present in the court room at the commencement of the trial which was scheduled to begin at 9:00am.

Dunn was in the building at the time, however had mistakenly thought the time of trial was at 9:30am. He and two interested citizens were sitting in the cafeteria of the building until 9:20am when Dunn approached the court room to see if anyone else was arriving to observe, when he noticed the defendants and their counsel leaving the court house.

As they passed Dunn in the hall way, their counsel gave Dunn back his original request for a list of their members and the $10.00 fee telling him the case was dismissed.

Dunn then went into the court room where they had proceeded to deal with another matter. The prosecutor turned around, saw Dunn at the door and said, "Mr. Dunn is here" to which Dunn appologized for interrupting and backed out.

Due to being late, the charges were dismissed by the Justice of the Peace.

Dunn then filed an appeal of the Justices decision after reading case law which demonstrated the possibility of success based on the fact that the Justice of the Peace did not at least put out a page to see if Dunn was in the building, which is a fairly common practice.

Although a Justice of the Peace, or a Judge has the right to exercise their discretion in certain circumstances, they also have an obligation to ensure that they do so in a "Judicial Manner" which has been established in case law.

The Judge sternly warned Dunn of how critical it is to be organized and on time, and not to waste the time of parties involved, instructing him to write an apology letter to the CAS and to Barbara MacKinnon for wasting their time on that day.

Dunn agreed to write a formal apology as instructed and the order was made to set aside the dismissal of the charges, and the matter was sent back to the Provincial Offences Court for March 24, 2011 at 1:30pm in Court Room 102, at 100 Constellation simply to set a new date for trial of the original charges.

In addition to the Society's externally retained legal council, the Society's internal senior counsel (Engleking) also attended the court hearing.

After the hearing was completed, and the Judge had left the room, in front of the clerks who were still at their desks, Engleking sternly reminded Dunn of what the judge had said about the defendants (Society and MacKinnon) having not done anything wrong on the day of the December 1st trial when they asked for the matter to be dismissed, and that I should not blog that they had.

Dunn calmly turned and assured her that he would not and that he only blogs the truth. Dunn recalls Engleking stating something to the effect that she begs to differ, to which Dunn offered to discuss any of his blog posts with them to which she then turned and walked away with her counsel.

Dunn states that he has always observed Engleking over the years to be very professional in her communications with him in the past, both in person and via e-mail, but that her tone and body language on this day were very shocking to him.

Dunn notes that Engleking had mentioned feeling very sick during the day and he attributes her unusual display of emotion to her condition.

The apology letter will be posted here once sent to the Society.

Posted by afterfostercare at 6:18 PM

Source: Foster Care News (John Dunn)