Witchcraft Doesn’t Work
This blog is exactly 666 words long.
One of the best things about family law is that there’s always something new. After 32 years, I still find myself saying: “Huh, I have never seen that before.” I’ve only had one file of my own involving witchcraft, Satanic possession, or black masses – but they do pop up with surprising frequency in family law.
The most recent is S.K. v. S.M. https://canlii.ca/t/jd6sf. It should have been a fairly ho-hum case: 44-yr-old Mom, 48-yr-old Dad, and a 6-yr-old son. Mom wanted to move to Toronto with the boy. But the case veered into the Twilight Zone.
Mom accused Dad of human trafficking, running a brothel in his basement, making her a sex-slave, and maybe murdering his 1st wife. Mom claimed her mother-in-law was a criminal who practiced witchcraft. Mom also consistently refused to provide financial disclosure (read our blogs about disclosure). She lied at trial. She ignored court rulings and orders.
She committed the error of trying to be her own lawyer at trial. Justice Karen Douglas was not impressed:
[17] Although she had counsel, she attempted to exert considerable control over the trial process, interjecting during objections, directing counsel to put specific documents to her, and answering questions in cross-examination with questions of her own. When called in reply to address a narrow … objection, she offered unsolicited evidence, immediately following and directly contrary to an intra-trial ruling. The claimant had the benefit of advice from many different lawyers over the course of these protracted proceedings. After two days of closing submissions, she fired her trial lawyer and attempted to submit additional documentation to the court registry on her own behalf.
I always wonder at lawyers who let clients take over. Surgeons don’t wake the patient and ask them to take over. Chefs don’t invite diners over to the stove and ask if the sauce has enough tarragon. It’s ok for a client to say they want a particular result. It’s not ok for the client to try to take charge inside the courtroom. There are only two proper responses to a client who tries that: (1) Tell the client to pull its head out of its ass; or (2) dump the client. Sadly, in this case, Mom’s lawyer Malini Dyonisius stayed on.
Ultimately, Justice Douglas has this to say about Mom:
[19] Ultimately, I am unable to accept much of the claimant’s evidence. I conclude that she was an untrustworthy witness whose uncorroborated evidence is largely unreliable.
Justice Douglas had no such concerns about Dad:
[21] I do not have the same concerns about the respondent. He was a careful witness who testified in a clear, thoughtful, and responsive manner. Despite the many scandalous accusations leveled against him, he remained polite and respectful in his evidence and did not criticise the claimant’s parenting.
My black magic case occurred when a woman fraudulently claimed to be the common-law wife of my client. She was trying to extort “spousal support”. She lived down the street, and knew he was a widower. During my pretrial questioning of her, she began a fairly obvious incantation – trying to cast a spell on me. I’d had an idea she might, so I had carefully prepared. I began reciting the Lord’s Prayer, backwards, in Latin, while making the “Horned God” gesture back at her: “Mena. Aluceas ni airolg, te satsetop, te munger muut aiuq. Olam a son arebil des …” She shrieked in fear, ran from the room, and locked herself in a cleaning closet. Eventually, she agreed to abandon her claim in return for one-way airfare back to her own country. I assured her that if she ever bothered my client again, I’d be there, with all my Dark Powers….
It took me days of practice to learn the “Anti-Pater Noster”. It saved my client tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and – maybe – interim spousal support.
At Clear Legal, we have been defeating other people’s demons since 1990.
