Court of Appeal

CASE NO.                                     VOL. NO.                                            PAGE

CARLO MARTINI                                                                                                          COMMUNITY SERVICES, NOVA                           SCOTIA GOVERNMENT, ROYAL

                                             - and -                              CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE

        (COLE HARBOUR

        DETACHMENT), HONOURABLE

        FRANCENE COSMAN, MARK

        CAMERON, DAN POTTIE,

        STAFF SGT. RON NOSS, CPL.

        WAYNE LATIMERE, GORDON

        KELLY, KATHY LOVE, AND

        CLARA BUCKLE

(Appellant)                                                                                                              (Respondents)

CA 154979                                               Halifax, N.S.                                      FREEMAN, J.A.

                                                   [Cite as: Martini v. Nova Scotia

                                           (Community Services),, 2000 NSCA 47]

APPEAL HEARD:                                 March 29, 2000

JUDGMENT DELIVERED:                 April 7, 2000

SUBJECT:         Civil Law; Procedure; Motion to Strike; Civil Procedure Rule 14.25; Insufficient Pleadings.

SUMMARY:        The appellant’s common law wife moved to Quebec with their daughter on October 28, 1997, when no custody order was in effect.    The appellant was granted an interim custody order on an ex parte application, and the wife obtained an interim custody order after a hearing in Quebec, where she was residing with the child.  The appellant brought a wide-ranging lawsuit against various agencies and individuals claiming $100,000,000 in damages because they had failed to protect his daughter. The action was virtually eliminated as the result of two interlocutory applications in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.  This is an appeal from the second  application striking the action against various defendants because the pleadings were insufficient.

ISSUES:              The principal ground argued on appeal was that the Chambers judge erred in hearing the appeal while an appeal was pending from the first application, in which the appellant had been denied an extension of time for responding to a demand for particulars.

RESULT:           The appeal was dismissed with costs.  The chambers judge did not commit reversible error, either in proceeding with the application or in his conclusions.  The appeal did not operate as a stay of the earlier order, and in any event it had been dismissed.