Current Case Status

On June 5, 2019, my lawyer filed two Applications with the Tribunal. These applications, as well as the supporting affidavit of Jennifer Cocke (which was used to file evidence to the Tribunal), are now uploaded on the Documents page. I’ve chosen to put up only the pleadings and not the underlying documents themselves as they have some confidential information like email addresses, and I don’t currently have access to a pdf editing program.

The first Application is for Documents and Costs. As you will see, it thoroughly sets out the relevant documents UBC should have provided, and the deficiencies in what it did end up providing. As a result of the egregious deficiencies, I’ve asked for the Tribunal to order UBC to pay me costs of $10,000. I should have been provided documents by late 2017, but granted UBC extensions, and over a year’s worth of time to follow up the insufficient disclosure from May 2018. In the process, I incurred costs to travel and stay in Vancouver, as well as delaying the start of a new job (two weeks of pay and a month’s worth of health insurance coverage for my family), plus the costs of a year of lost litigation time, paying for my lawyer’s time, and the lost time of class members who assisted me in figuring out what was missing. In the past year, I moved even further away from Vancouver and as a private citizen working pretty much by myself on this case, my ability to put on the pressure pales compared to UBC’s ability to ignore me. I am hopeful the Tribunal will recognize that UBC should be penalized for its foot dragging.

The second Application is for Documents from a Third Party – Paula Butler. As you may recall, in the immediate aftermath of the airing of “School of Secrets” and the press conference when I announced I would file a human rights complaint, UBC hired her as an outside consultant to evaluate what went wrong in the Mordvinov events. She interviewed me and several others from the History Department, but I understand that some people refused to work with her, as their trust in UBC’s institutional management was completely broken. In February 2016, UBC released a summary of her full report (claiming the full report would be confidential in order to “protect the privacy” of the women). Martha Piper and Sara-Jane Finlay made some rather crowing statements to the Board of Governors and the media about how Butler had exonerated UBC’s conduct in mishandling the reports about Mordvinov, and also that she concluded CBC had made misleading statements in its reporting. However, UBC stated after this litigation began that her report was suddenly privileged and did not produce it, despite relying upon it in its defense. Butler personally told me that she would not be able to answer whether UBC retained her to produce privileged materials. My Application requests the Tribunal order her to produce the full report, her terms of reference, and relevant supporting documents, such as communications with people who refused to speak with her and the documents she reviewed.

At this point our next step is to await UBC’s response to the Applications. I anticipate it will oppose them.

Finally, I should explain the delay in updating this blog for the month of May. We had hoped to file the Applications in that month. My time has also been taken up as I have been defending myself in a defamation case (unrelated to this human rights case). In the past two months I prepared and filed an application and affidavit and was cross examined in that matter. I regret that my attention was divided to the detriment of this case, but now that the ball is back in UBC’s court I am hopeful that forward progress will continue.

The Application for Documents continues to be drafted. For most of the past month I was in India with limited Internet access, and my lawyer Clea Parfitt was in a Hearing for another client which lasted two weeks longer than she expected.

If you are a Class Member, particularly a Mordvinov Class Member, and you have any documents you think would be relevant to the case, now is the time to share. If I had even some of the correspondence between the university and the other Class Members, my Application of Documents would be far stronger, because I would be able to show that UBC did not provide relevant and material disclosure. I can already show this using internal inconsistencies in the documents provided (or blatant oversights such as the refusal to disclose the Butler Report), but it makes for a stronger argument to show the evidence itself.

I am particularly interested in events which took place at Green College, the representations UBC made to Class Members about the disciplinary process or the October 2015 hearing for Mordvinov, and any time a Class Member or advocate disclosed/reported Mordvinov or had a meeting with a UBC employee. However, I welcome any document a Class Member is willing to share. The sooner, the better, so we have time to read and digest the evidence.

There are several options for getting the documents to me. You can email it to my public email address ubcsexualassault@gmail.com (or my personal email address, which was conveyed in the initial communication provided by the university). You can mail or fax it directly to Clea Parfitt at 407 – 825 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1K9, (604) 689-5572. For those people in Vancouver, she is also available to meet in person and can answer any questions you may have.

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.