| "HOUSTON V. HOUSTON ET AL." CONTINUED |
When Robert Taylor booked hearings Sherman would always show up in court, even when
instructed not to, even when he told me -- and the BC Supreme Court -- he didn't represent a client
in the matter, even when Taylor wasn't acting on behalf of any known party.
And even when the hearings were being held in open contempt of a court judgment.
At the conclusion of the August 5, 2005 hearing Justice Grant D. Burnyeat explained to the lawyers
he was very eager to see the matter wrapped up and dealt with as quickly as possible. As such, the
anxious judge pronounced the following binding ultimatum: the parties must return to court and
finalize the proceedings before the first day of October 2005. Burnyeat adjudicated that the
absolute unquestionable final date on which the matter may be again heard in court was to be
September 30, 2005. This September 30, 2005 expiration condition was included as Term 14 in the
resultant court order derived from the hearing. It's mentioned five separate times in the order. Five
times. The order was dated entered at the Vancouver Registry of the Supreme Court of BC on
October 31, 2005. It was entered at the courthouse after the expiration date of the suit. It's signed
by my counsel Glen Sherman (who chose to write "settled" as his signature), by counsel for the
petitioner Robert W. Taylor, and by the presiding judge himself, Justice Burnyeat.
The Term 14 deadline of September 30, 2005 is a restrictive, binding term in the order. If one of
the parties in the dispute had wished to extend the stop-date beyond September 30, 2005 an appeal
of the expiration date term would have been necessary. The cutoff date term was not appealed or
opposed by the petitioner's counsel. No one opposed it. I received a copy of the August 5, 2005
order in a package from Sherman dated March 27, 2006, almost eight months after the hearing, the
package containing the particulars of an upcoming PricewaterhouseCoopers application for an order
to sell a real estate holding owned by a company in receivership. The order was incidentally
included in submissions PwC intended to file with the court. According to the company brokerage
statements, all the assets PwC liquidates ends up being paid to them. All indications are the
$100,000.00 derived from this sale would have been paid to them as well. I haven't been informed
if this proposed sale ever took place.
The date when the lawsuit would officially expire and thus become defunct came and went without
event. No new hearings were scheduled prior to October 1, 2005, no additional application was
made to the court to extend the expiration date beyond September 30, 2005, nor did Taylor appeal
the end-date. A deep, immense burden of uncertainty was lifted from my soul the instant the clock
struck five on the afternoon of Friday, September 30, 2005. Finally, after five grueling years of
bitter and pointless litigation, it appeared the proceedings, hearings held despite the fact no actual
lawsuit would ever be litigated, were at long last going to come to a decisive conclusion.
However, to the lawyers involved, to the judge hearing the case, and even to the courthouse itself,
Term 14, establishing an official end date for the proceedings of SCBC Action No. L012320 might
as well have been written in a foreign tongue - Russian for instance. To them the condition was
utterly meaningless. Term 14 held no bearing at all on the conduct of the lawyers or indeed on the
conduct of those responsible for the administration of hearings and trials in the Vancouver Registry
of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. It didn't mean a thing to them. Neither the trial
scheduling department nor Justice Burnyeat looked at Term 14 as grounds to maybe consider the
possibility that perhaps Taylor should be turned away when he faxed the courthouse looking to book
more hearings in the action. All participants, including the courthouse employees who facilitate
court proceedings, were completely blind to Term 14 in the order. None of them saw it as
pertaining to their conduct in any manner whatsoever. This binding, indisputable term in a court
order did not govern their actions in any discernible way. A surprise? Not really. Pathetic and sad,
yes. But a surprise? No. As has been observed time after time, legal profession workers in BC
don't actually seem to consider themselves as providing services pursuant to the laws of the country
of Canada.
Taylor was absolutely determined to find a way to get his hands on my family's wealth. Lucky for
Taylor his colleagues in the legal profession, and in government, made themselves available to assist
him in any way they could. The binding September 30, 2005 expiration date notwithstanding, at
least two more hearings took place without any application for an extension of the September 30,
2005 deadline. As such the hearings after the date of September 30, 2005 were prohibited by law
and were completely illegal, they were held in contempt of an order of the court. But they took
place anyway. What's more, the subsequent hearings were conducted in secret, without notice to
me.
What might the reasons have been for the Ministry of Attorney General, and my own attorney(!), to
illegally breach an order of the court so as to proceed with additional hearings in an already viciously
acrimonious dispute? Was it to promote peace and goodwill in our time? As a display of tolerance
on the part of the government of British Columbia? And what motivated these individuals to
undertake the post-September 30, 2005 hearings surreptitiously? Did they deliberately conceal these
clandestine hearings as a necessary measure in the interests of justice? Were the proceedings
judiciously hidden so the Attorney General's ministry could guide the matter towards a fair and
reasonable settlement? Come now. They were held privately because they were illegal. Because
they were taking place in abject defiance of the law. Any hearings in the matter after September 30,
2005 had to be held underground -- they were happening well beyond the boundaries of compliant
legal conduct, in out-and-out contempt of a court order. But not for justice! These were basement
goombah (Italian slang for brotherhood, loyalty and shared interests) hearings taking place in the
courthouse boiler room, hearings held as a personal favor to Taylor who still had unfinished monkey
business to take care of, dealings that couldn't be concluded without more bogus court orders. Bob
Taylor was desperate. He needed those court orders.
Glen Sherman's pattern of disregarding my instructions revealed itself early in our relationship. On
March 7, 2005 I paid Glen Sherman Law Corporation a $5,000.00 retainer. However, in an August
15, 2005 statement of account for services rendered I was told the amount of retainer paid was only
$4,938.00. I asked him to remit another statement that accurately reflected the retainer I paid. He
refused, telling me the missing $62.00 was used to pay something called a "filing fee" and the
remitting of an accurate statement of account was a "forced formality" he would not undertake.
On October 22, 2005 I moved in with my father, the alleged petitioner in the lawsuit, in the town of
Powell River, BC. On October 24, 2005 I wrote a letter and informed Sherman of my relocation.
The same day I sent a letter to my sibling Lesley L. Houston telling her of my new residence. The
very instant I left the city Taylor and Sherman saw an opportunity to grasp and exploit. On October
26, 2005, almost the exact date I informed Sherman and my sister of my new whereabouts, Taylor
faxed Sherman notice he'd scheduled a December 9, 2005 hearing in front of Justice Burnyeat.
Sherman deliberately withheld this information from me, choosing to wait until the day before the
hearing to tell me about it. And in the e-mail I received the afternoon before the hearing Sherman
said the application was to settle the terms of the existing cross-examination orders and nothing
more. The reason Sherman provided no notice of the hearing was to prevent his client from
attending court. As soon as these "professionals" of Canada's justice system found out I was no
longer living in the Vancouver region (having taken up residence with the petitioner who was
supposedly suing me) the conspirators took steps to quickly assemble in a covert courthouse
gathering, an illegal mob meeting that resulted in financially punishing judgments exceedingly
adverse to me. This was an intimidation tactic. Knowing they'd been caught proceeding with a
lawsuit that was a fraud, Sherman and Taylor took advantage of my reduced accessibility to the
courthouse to rendezvous in a closed hearing that would allow them to procure judgments in favor
of Taylor and PwC. The tacit settlement they decided to shove down my throat was this: PwC
would keep the million dollars it had ripped off from the BMO Nesbitt Burns investment accounts
and the remainder would be laundered in the general direction of Lesley L. Houston who had a joint
bank account with my father and power of attorney over his financial affairs. Then when my sister
had possession of the funds, Taylor would submit a bill for services rendered and receive his
kickback. I have evidence proving Taylor Veinotte Sullivan was receiving funding for the litigation
from my sister.
According to the December 9, 2007 order the petitioner was to receive a payment totaling
$596,271.00 from two companies I own in receivership. In addition, the petitioner was awarded
costs against me of $3,000.00. This sum adds up to about $600,000.00. This large capital payment
was awarded in a secret hearing, a hearing that was also being held in contempt of a court-ordered
expiration date for litigation. And why costs against me? The reason is simple: to deter me from
pursuing this matter in BC's justice system. That's the only explanation I can think of for the court
to ask me to pay costs in a hearing where PwC is being sued. Taylor's application was to have the
court compel PwC to take action against me and in favour of his client, Taylor was not suing me in
the hearing. And according to the order produced from this application, PwC's counsel didn't
appear in court to either consent to or challenge the application against them. I don't believe I ever
received an entered copy of the order.
I received copies of the two December 9, 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers orders in early January of
2006, almost immediately after they were entered. Although these orders, a restraining order and an
order approving PwC's fees, are signed by PwC's counsel Joseph P. Mockler, by Robert W. Taylor
and by Glen Sherman, it's unknown whether or not Mockler even bothered to go to the trouble of
showing up in court to procure them. It's very likely the orders were processed through the
Vancouver Registry of the Supreme Court without any of the signatories actually appearing together
in a courtroom. According to the order Taylor procured the same day, although duly served with
notice, no counsel for PwC appeared in court in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver
Registry, on December 9, 2005. According to that order Mockler was not in court that day. And
we already know PwC received Supreme Court judgments previously without appearing in court.
Robert W. Taylor proved it when he secured orders for PwC in an April 1, 2003 hearing. PwC and
its counsel were nowhere to be seen in that application.
With his disturbed handling of the December 9, 2005 hearing the alarm was sounded, Sherman had
instantly become hazardous, he was now more nuisance than lawyer. I thought I'd hired legal
counsel, not a thug. Instead of helping to extricate me from BC's highly oppressive civil litigation
system, he participated in activity designed to intimidate and discourage me from confronting my
opponents. He'd changed sides. The warboys rolled up in their mob-wagon and said, “Get on
board,” and that's precisely what Sherman did. He turned around and started running with the
pack. After quietly taking the brunt of his belligerence for several months I finally decided it was
necessary to distance myself from Glen Sherman. As of December 9, 2005 I would only accept
written communications from him. From day one I said, "Settle this." And I reiterated the point
every single time I wrote to him or we talked. He wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't do it. When I
realized Sherman didn't see himself as a tool to negotiate a settlement there was very little more to
say to him. All the information relating to the suit brought against me by my brain-damaged father
was filed. As such there was no reason for me and Sherman to continue talking. His job was to get
on with a settlement.
By June of 2006 Glen Sherman had resigned as counsel. Not only had he resigned as counsel, he
had also been instructed to steer clear of all future proceedings. In an April 5, 2006 letter of
instruction in response to a notice of motion from PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. threatening to sell a
real estate holding in receivership, I clearly forbade him from making any further appearances in
court with either PwC or with Robert W. Taylor. I'd had enough. The contempt on display was
insurmountable. My opponents win every time, I lose every time. Why be part of a con game
where you're the target? I saw no point in paying Sherman to appear in court when the outcome
was predetermined.
But my clear instructions to him notwithstanding, Sherman went to court anyway.
instructed not to, even when he told me -- and the BC Supreme Court -- he didn't represent a client
in the matter, even when Taylor wasn't acting on behalf of any known party.
And even when the hearings were being held in open contempt of a court judgment.
At the conclusion of the August 5, 2005 hearing Justice Grant D. Burnyeat explained to the lawyers
he was very eager to see the matter wrapped up and dealt with as quickly as possible. As such, the
anxious judge pronounced the following binding ultimatum: the parties must return to court and
finalize the proceedings before the first day of October 2005. Burnyeat adjudicated that the
absolute unquestionable final date on which the matter may be again heard in court was to be
September 30, 2005. This September 30, 2005 expiration condition was included as Term 14 in the
resultant court order derived from the hearing. It's mentioned five separate times in the order. Five
times. The order was dated entered at the Vancouver Registry of the Supreme Court of BC on
October 31, 2005. It was entered at the courthouse after the expiration date of the suit. It's signed
by my counsel Glen Sherman (who chose to write "settled" as his signature), by counsel for the
petitioner Robert W. Taylor, and by the presiding judge himself, Justice Burnyeat.
The Term 14 deadline of September 30, 2005 is a restrictive, binding term in the order. If one of
the parties in the dispute had wished to extend the stop-date beyond September 30, 2005 an appeal
of the expiration date term would have been necessary. The cutoff date term was not appealed or
opposed by the petitioner's counsel. No one opposed it. I received a copy of the August 5, 2005
order in a package from Sherman dated March 27, 2006, almost eight months after the hearing, the
package containing the particulars of an upcoming PricewaterhouseCoopers application for an order
to sell a real estate holding owned by a company in receivership. The order was incidentally
included in submissions PwC intended to file with the court. According to the company brokerage
statements, all the assets PwC liquidates ends up being paid to them. All indications are the
$100,000.00 derived from this sale would have been paid to them as well. I haven't been informed
if this proposed sale ever took place.
The date when the lawsuit would officially expire and thus become defunct came and went without
event. No new hearings were scheduled prior to October 1, 2005, no additional application was
made to the court to extend the expiration date beyond September 30, 2005, nor did Taylor appeal
the end-date. A deep, immense burden of uncertainty was lifted from my soul the instant the clock
struck five on the afternoon of Friday, September 30, 2005. Finally, after five grueling years of
bitter and pointless litigation, it appeared the proceedings, hearings held despite the fact no actual
lawsuit would ever be litigated, were at long last going to come to a decisive conclusion.
However, to the lawyers involved, to the judge hearing the case, and even to the courthouse itself,
Term 14, establishing an official end date for the proceedings of SCBC Action No. L012320 might
as well have been written in a foreign tongue - Russian for instance. To them the condition was
utterly meaningless. Term 14 held no bearing at all on the conduct of the lawyers or indeed on the
conduct of those responsible for the administration of hearings and trials in the Vancouver Registry
of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. It didn't mean a thing to them. Neither the trial
scheduling department nor Justice Burnyeat looked at Term 14 as grounds to maybe consider the
possibility that perhaps Taylor should be turned away when he faxed the courthouse looking to book
more hearings in the action. All participants, including the courthouse employees who facilitate
court proceedings, were completely blind to Term 14 in the order. None of them saw it as
pertaining to their conduct in any manner whatsoever. This binding, indisputable term in a court
order did not govern their actions in any discernible way. A surprise? Not really. Pathetic and sad,
yes. But a surprise? No. As has been observed time after time, legal profession workers in BC
don't actually seem to consider themselves as providing services pursuant to the laws of the country
of Canada.
Taylor was absolutely determined to find a way to get his hands on my family's wealth. Lucky for
Taylor his colleagues in the legal profession, and in government, made themselves available to assist
him in any way they could. The binding September 30, 2005 expiration date notwithstanding, at
least two more hearings took place without any application for an extension of the September 30,
2005 deadline. As such the hearings after the date of September 30, 2005 were prohibited by law
and were completely illegal, they were held in contempt of an order of the court. But they took
place anyway. What's more, the subsequent hearings were conducted in secret, without notice to
me.
What might the reasons have been for the Ministry of Attorney General, and my own attorney(!), to
illegally breach an order of the court so as to proceed with additional hearings in an already viciously
acrimonious dispute? Was it to promote peace and goodwill in our time? As a display of tolerance
on the part of the government of British Columbia? And what motivated these individuals to
undertake the post-September 30, 2005 hearings surreptitiously? Did they deliberately conceal these
clandestine hearings as a necessary measure in the interests of justice? Were the proceedings
judiciously hidden so the Attorney General's ministry could guide the matter towards a fair and
reasonable settlement? Come now. They were held privately because they were illegal. Because
they were taking place in abject defiance of the law. Any hearings in the matter after September 30,
2005 had to be held underground -- they were happening well beyond the boundaries of compliant
legal conduct, in out-and-out contempt of a court order. But not for justice! These were basement
goombah (Italian slang for brotherhood, loyalty and shared interests) hearings taking place in the
courthouse boiler room, hearings held as a personal favor to Taylor who still had unfinished monkey
business to take care of, dealings that couldn't be concluded without more bogus court orders. Bob
Taylor was desperate. He needed those court orders.
Glen Sherman's pattern of disregarding my instructions revealed itself early in our relationship. On
March 7, 2005 I paid Glen Sherman Law Corporation a $5,000.00 retainer. However, in an August
15, 2005 statement of account for services rendered I was told the amount of retainer paid was only
$4,938.00. I asked him to remit another statement that accurately reflected the retainer I paid. He
refused, telling me the missing $62.00 was used to pay something called a "filing fee" and the
remitting of an accurate statement of account was a "forced formality" he would not undertake.
On October 22, 2005 I moved in with my father, the alleged petitioner in the lawsuit, in the town of
Powell River, BC. On October 24, 2005 I wrote a letter and informed Sherman of my relocation.
The same day I sent a letter to my sibling Lesley L. Houston telling her of my new residence. The
very instant I left the city Taylor and Sherman saw an opportunity to grasp and exploit. On October
26, 2005, almost the exact date I informed Sherman and my sister of my new whereabouts, Taylor
faxed Sherman notice he'd scheduled a December 9, 2005 hearing in front of Justice Burnyeat.
Sherman deliberately withheld this information from me, choosing to wait until the day before the
hearing to tell me about it. And in the e-mail I received the afternoon before the hearing Sherman
said the application was to settle the terms of the existing cross-examination orders and nothing
more. The reason Sherman provided no notice of the hearing was to prevent his client from
attending court. As soon as these "professionals" of Canada's justice system found out I was no
longer living in the Vancouver region (having taken up residence with the petitioner who was
supposedly suing me) the conspirators took steps to quickly assemble in a covert courthouse
gathering, an illegal mob meeting that resulted in financially punishing judgments exceedingly
adverse to me. This was an intimidation tactic. Knowing they'd been caught proceeding with a
lawsuit that was a fraud, Sherman and Taylor took advantage of my reduced accessibility to the
courthouse to rendezvous in a closed hearing that would allow them to procure judgments in favor
of Taylor and PwC. The tacit settlement they decided to shove down my throat was this: PwC
would keep the million dollars it had ripped off from the BMO Nesbitt Burns investment accounts
and the remainder would be laundered in the general direction of Lesley L. Houston who had a joint
bank account with my father and power of attorney over his financial affairs. Then when my sister
had possession of the funds, Taylor would submit a bill for services rendered and receive his
kickback. I have evidence proving Taylor Veinotte Sullivan was receiving funding for the litigation
from my sister.
According to the December 9, 2007 order the petitioner was to receive a payment totaling
$596,271.00 from two companies I own in receivership. In addition, the petitioner was awarded
costs against me of $3,000.00. This sum adds up to about $600,000.00. This large capital payment
was awarded in a secret hearing, a hearing that was also being held in contempt of a court-ordered
expiration date for litigation. And why costs against me? The reason is simple: to deter me from
pursuing this matter in BC's justice system. That's the only explanation I can think of for the court
to ask me to pay costs in a hearing where PwC is being sued. Taylor's application was to have the
court compel PwC to take action against me and in favour of his client, Taylor was not suing me in
the hearing. And according to the order produced from this application, PwC's counsel didn't
appear in court to either consent to or challenge the application against them. I don't believe I ever
received an entered copy of the order.
I received copies of the two December 9, 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers orders in early January of
2006, almost immediately after they were entered. Although these orders, a restraining order and an
order approving PwC's fees, are signed by PwC's counsel Joseph P. Mockler, by Robert W. Taylor
and by Glen Sherman, it's unknown whether or not Mockler even bothered to go to the trouble of
showing up in court to procure them. It's very likely the orders were processed through the
Vancouver Registry of the Supreme Court without any of the signatories actually appearing together
in a courtroom. According to the order Taylor procured the same day, although duly served with
notice, no counsel for PwC appeared in court in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver
Registry, on December 9, 2005. According to that order Mockler was not in court that day. And
we already know PwC received Supreme Court judgments previously without appearing in court.
Robert W. Taylor proved it when he secured orders for PwC in an April 1, 2003 hearing. PwC and
its counsel were nowhere to be seen in that application.
With his disturbed handling of the December 9, 2005 hearing the alarm was sounded, Sherman had
instantly become hazardous, he was now more nuisance than lawyer. I thought I'd hired legal
counsel, not a thug. Instead of helping to extricate me from BC's highly oppressive civil litigation
system, he participated in activity designed to intimidate and discourage me from confronting my
opponents. He'd changed sides. The warboys rolled up in their mob-wagon and said, “Get on
board,” and that's precisely what Sherman did. He turned around and started running with the
pack. After quietly taking the brunt of his belligerence for several months I finally decided it was
necessary to distance myself from Glen Sherman. As of December 9, 2005 I would only accept
written communications from him. From day one I said, "Settle this." And I reiterated the point
every single time I wrote to him or we talked. He wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't do it. When I
realized Sherman didn't see himself as a tool to negotiate a settlement there was very little more to
say to him. All the information relating to the suit brought against me by my brain-damaged father
was filed. As such there was no reason for me and Sherman to continue talking. His job was to get
on with a settlement.
By June of 2006 Glen Sherman had resigned as counsel. Not only had he resigned as counsel, he
had also been instructed to steer clear of all future proceedings. In an April 5, 2006 letter of
instruction in response to a notice of motion from PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. threatening to sell a
real estate holding in receivership, I clearly forbade him from making any further appearances in
court with either PwC or with Robert W. Taylor. I'd had enough. The contempt on display was
insurmountable. My opponents win every time, I lose every time. Why be part of a con game
where you're the target? I saw no point in paying Sherman to appear in court when the outcome
was predetermined.
But my clear instructions to him notwithstanding, Sherman went to court anyway.
14 / 45