Category: disclosure

Applications, Case Documents, disclosure

Case Update #14 – March 2019

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UBC sent out notifications to at least some of the Mordvinov class members whom I identified for it. These class members should have received the notification of this case’s existence last year – but, better late than never! If you are coming to this website for the first time after the initial communication – welcome. You can find the case history by clicking the “Current Case Status” tab at the top.

Unfortunately, UBC chose not to respond at all to our follow up letter outlining the insufficient or missing documents it must disclose. This ridiculous foot-dragging has gone on since last May and beyond. My lawyer is drafting an Application for Documents, in which we will request all documents to be provided unredacted and all relevant ones produced. We had hoped to have the Application ready by March 15, but she has been in Hearings for other cases. I will post the Application on the “Documents” tab once it is filed, as well as email it to class members who have told me they want to receive it.

Through some of my own efforts reaching out to people who have relevant documents, it is evident that UBC did not bother to collect them for disclosure. As with the class member communication situation – and going back to its mishandling of every single report of sexual violence by Dmitry Mordvinov – UBC’s “strategy” is to choose to do nothing and hope it works out.

The Application to Dismiss for my case is still pending, since I’m entitled to all disclosure prior to responding to it. The deadlines have been set aside.

Last month I neglected to share the great news that Stephanie Hale’s case survived the Application to Dismiss.

Finally, I will be traveling from March 15 to April 7 and I will have only intermittent access to email, and likely none to social media. I apologize if this causes any inconvenience.

Applications, communication plan, disclosure

Case Update #13 – February 2019

kirchmeiervubc

Following last month’s prehearing conference, my lawyer sent a 24 page letter to UBC again detailing the types and location of documents it did not produce. She gave UBC a deadline of February 15, 2019 to reply – and UBC missed the deadline. Not only did it not produce any new documents, it also did not send any updates to the documents already provided (e.g. without redactions). Because we were waiting to hear back, and because my lawyer was tied up in a Hearing in another case, I pushed my update to today. Given the detail of the letter, I am not going to post it to the Documents section of this website, but any class member may request it from me.

My plan now will be to prepare and file an Application for Documents to file with the Tribunal. This means that I am going to complain to the Tribunal that UBC has been deficient with its disclosure. (Any party in a legal action can file an “application,” which is a request for the Tribunal to give that side something that the other side doesn’t agree to give.) UBC was put on notice last year that, if it forced me to do that, I would request the Tribunal to order it to pay my costs. If I were still a taxpayer in BC, I would be upset by the unnecessary waste. We will also bring up UBC’s failure to contact all the class members.

I aim to file the Application by the end of February. I’m also preparing an Application for documents from a third party which will be filed at the same time.

 

Case Documents, communication plan, disclosure

Case Update #12 – January 2019

kirchmeiervubc

First of all, my apologies for my delay with with update.

The case management conference between my lawyer, the lawyer for UBC Mike Wagner, and the Tribunalmember (plus my lawyer’s articling student) took place on Thursday, January 17. They discussed three deficiencies on UBC’s part: 1) UBC’s inadequate efforts to inform the class members in this case that it is actually going on; 2) UBC’s inadequate search for and production of relevant documents; and 3) UBC’s choice to redact names and content from documents produced in disclosure.

UBC never responded to the 20+ page letter sent last year where I described the nature and extent of documents I expected, but did not receive. Nor did it reply to the letter I sent naming the class members who I know of but who did not receive the initial contact notice. Upon prodding from my lawyer, UBC provided a two page reply stating its position that it did everything required. I’ve posted the correspondence on the “Documents” page. (As a reminder, I did not post the May 2018 letters because I decided that they contain too many confidential details.)

At the conclusion of the meeting, the Tribunalmember ordered us to cooperate with respect to the first issue – the missing communications with known class members. Per the order, I am preparing my list of known class members, to whom at UBC they reported sexual misconduct, and contact information. UBC will use my list to investigate what happened and, per the order, provide the initial communication to the women.

There was some forward progress during the discussions. The lawyers agreed to hold multiple discussions over the second and third issues over the next month. I hope to provide a positive update by mid-February on the second and third issues. Since we are negotiating currently, however, I won’t get into the details now.

Case Documents, communication plan, disclosure

Case Update #11 – December 2018

kirchmeiervubc

A telephone meeting has been set to discuss UBC’s deficiencies in its disclosure and other issues between the parties and the Tribunalmember. It will take place on January 17, 2019. As a refresher, here is my summary of the various inadequacies of UBC’s disclosure. (To find any of my older updates, click “current case status” on the navigation bar above.) Next month, I will post the monthly update after the 17th meeting, since there will hopefully be substantive news to share at that point.

disclosure

Case Update #9 – October 2018 Update

kirchmeiervubc

As a reminder, the last forward action on the suit was that in May, UBC provided deficient disclosure documents and filed an Application to Dismiss the case. My lawyer and I countered with letters addressing both the extreme deficiency (using two dozen pages to describe in great detail the kinds of documents we expected to receive, but did not), and putting UBC and the Tribunal on notice that we would like to set aside the usual Application to Dismiss deadlines so that we could work something out informally. That is, we hoped that instead of going through the formal process of filing my own Application to ask the Tribunal to order the university to produce documents, UBC would undergo a revision of its opinion on the documents to which I am entitled in litigation, and provide them without further ado.

Well, there’s no evidence of the latter happening. In the interim UBC proposed a daylong “case management conference” to discuss differences of opinion, but there’s been no forward motion on actually scheduling such a thing (for which I would take time off work). In the absence of any reply, my lawyer communicated that we expected a substantive response – that is, UBC needs to do more with our May letter than ignore it, if we are going to agree to such a conference. We are waiting on UBC’s response.

In other news, right after starting a brand-new PR campaign, the Tribunal accepted the human rights complaint of six employees (or, as reported by the Ubyssey and others, eight employees) alleging that UBC exhibited a systematic pattern of discrimination against them based on either disability or pregnancy. Individual employees are named, including Gage Averill, Blye Frank, Jennifer Burns, and Gord Binstead. Meanwhile, at UBCO, students rallied to support a female student who said she was raped on campus (with, apparently, UBCO denying it happened there), where student organizer Temi Adeyemi is apparently furious, according to the Castanet story. Other coverage has a decidedly different spin, appearing to imply Adeyemi’s work to create the rally was done with UBCO’s blessing and support – done in the name of amorphous “awareness” rather than in response to specific failures rooted in personal experience. (It should be noted that I am critical of Shilo St. Cyr, head of UBCO SVPRO, because of disclosures by UBCO students to me regarding her actions to dissuade reports, and because St. Cyr openly admits she believes the new Policy 131 “goes too far,” whatever that means, but presumably it means resources are better spent on “awareness” campaigns suggesting that foolish, fragile victims are the problem, rather than posing hard questions about how UBC fails to address reporting barriers.) There was also, apparently, a student wanting to speak about their rape after receiving a cease-and-desist letter and being accused of lying earlier this month – but the UBCO student paper The Phoenix’s link is broken, suggesting to me that the alleged rapist knows that threats work.

Meanwhile, at UBC Vancouver, students are freaked out after a voyeur incident in September, and the university is doing nothing in particular (besides buying television ads), which might be why they feel that way?

And Policy 131 is getting under formal review, as required by the law, starting back in September 2019 and going to May 2020. It remains to be seen whether UBC will make a good faith effort to solicit student opinion – a review feature required by the law, which is also, unfortunately, an undefined term.