When Dogs Bite and Gas Stations Annoy: Legal Insights with Michael Mulligan

Ever wondered if your dog could land you in legal hot water? Or what happens when your neighbour's business becomes an unbearable nuisance? Legal expert Michael Mulligan returns to Legally Speaking with three captivating cases that reveal the fascinating intersection of everyday life and Canadian law.

The spotlight first falls on Juliet, a miniature Australian shepherd whose elevator encounter led to a $4,800 claim after she allegedly bit a woman's hand. Mulligan unpacks the surprising legal doctrine that essentially gives dogs "one free bite" before owners face liability. The Civil Resolution Tribunal's dismissal of the case highlights the important distinction between a single incident and established patterns of behaviour in animal liability cases. Dog owners across British Columbia might breathe easier knowing that, without prior knowledge of aggressive tendencies, they're unlikely to face legal consequences for an otherwise well-behaved pet's first transgression.

Things heat up with the case of a small-town gas station that found itself embroiled in a 20-day trial complete with acoustics and vapour experts. When the station relocated its underground tanks, neighbouring residents endured years of noise, fumes, and bright lights from fuel deliveries. Though the court acknowledged these disturbances constituted a legal nuisance, it rejected demands to shut down operations. Instead, the judge awarded $80,000 to the affected family, demonstrating how Canadian courts balance individual property rights against broader community needs. The Court of Appeal's affirmation of this approach reveals the remarkable discretion judges maintain when crafting remedies that serve competing interests.

The final case delivers a cautionary tale featuring a BC Housing tenant known variously as "Lover-Peace" and "Emotions Universe," whose troublesome behaviour resulted in his designation as a "vexatious litigant." After breaching an agreement to vacate public housing in exchange for rental supplements, his attempt to appeal his eviction order led to a full-day hearing where his pattern of harassing behaviour toward legal professionals came to light. The $2,500 special costs penalty imposed sends a clear message about the consequences of abusing the legal system.

Want to explore more fascinating intersections of law and everyday life? Join us next week for another edition of Legally Speaking, where Michael Mulligan continues to demystify Canadian jurisprudence one compelling case at a time.

Follow this link for a transcript of the show and links to the cases discussed.

Episode Transcript

Steve Young (00:00):
Joining us now a regular feature on the Adam
Sterling Show Michael Mulligan,legally speaking, joining us on
the line.
Good day, michael.
Welcome to the program again.

Michael Mulligan (00:10):
Hey, good afternoon.

Steve Young (00:11):
Always great to be here, Well you've prepared some
great stories for us this week,and let's get right into it.
Everybody loves dog stories.

Michael Mulligan (00:23):
We do, that's true.

Steve Young (00:27):
We all love them.

Michael Mulligan (00:30):
And I must say the legal world serves up
endless streams of human affairs, including ones that involve
dogs, which is where we'restarting.
So the first case to talk aboutis a new decision.
It came out actually from theCivil Resolution Tribunal and,
as listeners may know, the CivilResolution Tribunal will hear

(00:51):
very small claims, claims thatare for less than $5,000.
And the idea is that the CivilResolution Tribunal can do those
in a variety of ways, like theycould have a telephone hearing
or online or in person, whatevermade the most sense.
And this particular claim was aclaim based on an allegation of

(01:13):
being bitten by a miniatureAustralian shepherd named Juliet
.

Steve Young (01:19):
Juliet seems like a nice name, though.

Michael Mulligan (01:22):
Yes.
So Juliet, the mini Australianshepherd, was being taken care
of by, I guess, her grandfather,in the sense that her owner was
out of town and so her fatherthe father of the owner was
taking care of Juliet.
He lived in a condo orapartment.
He was coming down, walked outof the elevator apparently a

(01:44):
narrow space and the woman whowas bitten was getting on the
elevator, and there in fact wasa video of what transpired.
It didn't show everything, butit did show Juliet jumping up
and briefly making contact withthe woman's left hand.
The woman on the video lookedat her hand and then showed it

(02:06):
to the grandfather taking careof the dog, and it precipitated
eventually a claim for some$4,800, claiming that the dog
bite resulted in lost wages,medical expenses and pain and
suffering, and so theadjudicator had to sort out is
there liability here and in BC?

(02:29):
There are three different waysyou could get to civil liability
for a dog bite.
One of those ways would bewhat's referred to as occupier's
liability right.
There can be liability for theowner or occupier of property
right, like, for example, thatwould be applicable if you had
don't clear the snow off of yourwalkway or if you have a dog

(02:50):
kind of wandering around therethat bites somebody when they
come into your property.
But that didn't apply here.
Nobody had sued the strata andthe fellow taking care of the
dog didn't own the place, didn'town the elevator.
So that didn't apply.
And so what the adjudicator hadto consider were two different
concepts.
They're sort of related.

(03:10):
But there's an interestingdoctrine that the adjudicator
applied, sentier, and thatconcept is that a domestic pet
like a dog is presumed to beharmless, and sometimes that
gets expressed as the idea thatevery dog is entitled to one

(03:30):
bite.
Now it's not quite as clear asall that, but the idea is that
if you're suing somebody tryingto get compensation for a dog
biting you, you're going to needto prove several things,
including that the person you'resuing was the person who owned
or was keeping the dog.
That wouldn't be too much of anissue here.
You would also have to showthat the dog, juliet, would have

(03:54):
a propensity or an inclinationto bite or lunge at people do
things like that and that theowner or the person taking care
of it knew that.
Now here there just wasn't anyevidence of that, the evidence
from both the fathers takingcare of the dog dog's
grandfather I guess, and theowner both testified that there

(04:16):
was no history of the dog bitinganyone before, no indication of
any propensity to do that, andthat what happened here must
have been the dog gettingstartled and acted quote out of
character in terms of this nipon the hand.

Steve Young (04:29):
Most dog owners say they have character, don't they
?
That's right.

Michael Mulligan (04:33):
The dog you know, maybe yeah, so out of
character for Juliet, and therewas some evidence here that the
woman also reported thisincident to the dog catcher, I
guess, over in Vancouver, wholooked into it and there had
been no history of any priorcomplaints with respect to this
dog doing anything.
And so that wasn't consistentwith the dog having a propensity

(04:55):
to bite people or lunge atpeople.
Found that indeed there was.
The person suing just hadn'tmade out a claim on the basis
that this dog had somepropensity for harming people or
biting people, and so theadjudicator then moved on to the
issue of negligence, which issort of a general concept.

(05:17):
You're suing somebody fornegligence.
To do that you have to showthat the person has a duty of
care to you, and indeed somebodyhaving a dog would have a duty
of care to somebody getting onthe elevator.
But you also need to show thatthe person breached their duty
of care.
Perfection is not required, andhere the evidence, including on
the video and what theytestified about was that the

(05:41):
fellow taking care of the dogwas headed on a short leash,
headed under control.
There was no indication of thedog ever in the past having done
anything to anyone, and so,even though the dog did manage
to nip the woman on her hand,the adjudicator found that the
fellow walking the dog, thedog's grandfather, hadn't been

(06:01):
negligent, and that's what youneed to prove negligence.
And given that presumption thatI mentioned in terms of, you
know, dogs being presumed to beharmless, even though here the
woman may well have been nippedon the hand, she was
unsuccessful on the basis ofthose two principles.
So that's the legal result ofthe claim for the $4,800.

(06:26):
And I guess the summary of itwould really be that every dog's
entitled to one bite, and ifyou've got a dog like this that
doesn't ordinarily behave inthat way, even if there is some
damage caused, the owner may notbe at least legally responsible
for pain and suffering andother expenses that might flow
from it?
Does Juliet feel exonerated?

(06:50):
I guess so, at least on abalance of probabilities, and
you know, if I were Juliet I'dbe probably putting a copy of
this up above my dog bowl, giventhat there is no indication, at
least officially found, to haveany kind of propensity for
doing this.
It was just a good dog who wasstartled and acted out of
character.

Steve Young (07:08):
All right, I'm on board with Juliet being found
not responsible.
The second one is about a gasstation nuisance.
Tell us about this one.

Michael Mulligan (07:21):
Yeah, so there are a couple of, I think,
interesting things in this case,and it's a case brought, as
you've indicated, on the basisof an alleged nuisance, and the
idea there is that if you havean interference which is
substantial, not trivial, andinterferes with the use and

(07:41):
enjoyment of somebody's property, yeah, you can sue uh under
this concept of nuisance and theparticular case involved.
It was in a small town, uh, andit was a gas station that was
being sued by somebody who livedacross an alley and the uh.
The alleged nuisance commenceda few years ago when the gas
station decided to move where itkept the gas its storage tanks.

(08:05):
Previously, the tanks wereunderground, but they decided to
install them in a differentlocation, on the alley, back in
2018.
And, as a result of that change, the trucks delivering fuel had
to go down the alley and,rather than letting the fuel run
by gravity out of the truckinto the underground tank, they
go down the alley and, ratherthan letting the fuel run by
gravity out of the truck intothe underground tank, they had

(08:26):
to pump the fuel into theseabove-ground tanks and the
result of that were, as youmight expect, some noise and
fumes and there were deliveriesthere two or three times per
week.
Other things that contributedto the nuisance included an
installation of a bright lightthat illuminated the area, and
you would have these deliveriesoccurring at various random

(08:48):
times.
I must say, as I read thedecision for those of us of the
appropriate age it caused me tothink of the Seinfeld episode
with the Kenny Roaster signacross from Kramer's apartment
with the blindingly bright redlight shining in.
I'm not sure it was all that,but certainly it was something
the judge determined was anon-trivial interference with
the enjoyment of property.

(09:10):
And so the judge at trial found,indeed, they had managed to
establish that there was anuisance.
And boy, they really didlitigate this one.
This was actually.
It went to the Court of Appeal.
The original trial lasted 20days, if you can imagine that,
and it involved the courthearing from numerous experts,
including experts on acousticsand gas vapors.

(09:31):
You can just imagine that wouldhave been a very not only
complicated but expensive trialto conduct, but nonetheless, I
guess they were really quiteconcerned about the vapors and
the noise.
And the controversial thing is,at the end of all, that the
judge found that, yes, they hadmade out a nuisance, and despite

(09:54):
the fact that the gas stationhad done various things to
mitigate it, going forward, likeputting in a filter to get the
smell and putting the light on atimer and doing various other
things, they found that therewas a nuisance and the nuisance
was, at least to some extent,despite the efforts of
mitigation, still going on.
There were still these trucksdelivering and pumping fuel.
They were noisy, there weresome vapors still there, the
light was still bothersome andthe judge and this was the

(10:16):
controversial part rather thandoing what is the presumptive
thing when a judge finds thatthere is a nuisance like that
that's continuing, there is apresumption that where a judge
finds there's both a nuisanceand the nuisance is a continuing
nuisance, that the judge wouldissue what's referred to as a
permanent injunction, like inorder to stop being a nuisance,

(10:37):
which sort of makes sense.
Right, yeah, now that's whatthey asked for.
They said, look, we want tohave a permanent injunction no
more fuel deliveries, no moretrucks, no more pumping and turn
the light off.
And the judge interestinglyrefused to do that.
And the judge took into accountvarious things, including the
efforts of mitigation and thesocial utility of the gas

(10:58):
station, which otherwise mighthave to be closed down in a
small town to avoid any of that.
And so instead of granting thepermanent injunction, ordering
no more pumping or delivery orbright light, the judge decided
to deal with it by ordering thepayment of money.
And so there were two adults inthe home and a child and the

(11:18):
judge ordered one of the adultsget $20,000, the other adult
$30,000, and the child in trustanother $30,000.
So the family living across thealley was putting up with the
bright light, the noise and thesmell wound up with.
You know that's not aninsignificant amount of money.
Probably a good start for thechild's future college tuition

(11:40):
or whatnot?
Future college tuition orwhatnot?
No injunction.
And so after that 20-day trialand that decision, they appealed
that to the BC Court of Appealand the Court of Appeal decision
on that just came out Again.
All of this would have beenfabulously expensive, having a
20-day trial with experts andthen on to the Court of Appeal.
But the neighbors lost and theCourt of Appeal said yes, it is

(12:03):
true that a permanent injunctionis the presumptive remedy.
And they found that some of thelanguage used by the judge in
deciding not to provide thepermanent injunction wasn't
quite as clear as it could havebeen.
They said the judge should haveengaged in a balancing of
convenience, which wasn't quitethe right approach.
But the findings were otherwisenot inappropriate, and so the

(12:27):
Court of Appeal didn't interferewith that call, pointing out
that getting an injunction likethat a permanent one, to stop
being a nuisance, even thoughthat's a presumptive remedy
remedies like that injunctionsare inherently discretionary.
Judges have pretty widediscretion to determine how
you're going to resolve thatsort of a problem, and here they

(12:49):
upheld what the judge did, andso the net result is that
there's been some mitigation,but the gas station can stay
open, the family can enjoy their$50,000, $80,000, the family
can enjoy their $80,000, butthere won't be an order that
prevents the fuel from beingdelivered and all the things
that come with that.
So I thought it was aninteresting case, both because

(13:10):
it deals with that concept ofnuisance, that something's going
to arise for people, and thatissue of, well, what's to be
done about that?
When you find there to be anuisance, does winning in court
mean that the nuisance has tostop?
And the answer is no.
Usually that would be theresult, but here it's reasonable
for the judge to take intoaccount other things, like the

(13:31):
fact that a permanent injunctionwould mean that the gas station
in the small town would have toshut, and pointing out that
some of the things done like Iguess the bright light really
amounted to an effort at safety.
I guess you want to have awell-illuminated area when
you're pumping gas into a giantabove-ground tank right.

Steve Young (13:47):
That doesn't seem all that unreasonable, does it?

Michael Mulligan (13:51):
No, no doubt an irritation if you live across
the alley, but here they'regoing to have to just sop up
their nuisance with the cashaward, rather than in order to
stop pumping gas.

Steve Young (14:01):
I know you've got one more.
We're going to take a break andget right back to you with a
third one involving BC housingthat's coming up right after
this Midway through LegallySpeaking with Michael Mulligan a
regular feature here on CFAX1070 and with the Adam Show and
BC housing involved in thisthird story.

(14:21):
You've identified third casefor the day.
Maybe take us through that one.

Michael Mulligan (14:27):
Sure, I think this.
Maybe I describe this as acautionary tale before you
decide you want to take a jobwith BC Housing, or maybe indeed
with the Residential TenancyBranch, or finally, here as a
Supreme Court judge.
So this case involved this man,and he's described in the style
of cause here as goes byalternately, lover Peace, also

(14:51):
known as Emotions Universe, orfinally, osama Karman al-Samai
Salamani Samai get thatpronounced correctly and this
fellow apparently was a tenantof BC Housing since 2013, and
not a good one.
According to the judgment, he,over a period of years, engaged

(15:12):
in what's described here in thejudgment as creating ongoing
disturbances, continuingharassment of staff and other
tenants.
His behavior included thingslike disturbing, harassing,
interfering and threatening thesafety of other tenants and
staff, videotaping them,photographing them, using racial
slurs and sleeping in commonareas, including the lounge and

(15:32):
bathroom.
Now, in response to that, itlooks like, eventually BC
Housing tried to basically buyhim off, to get him out of the
premises, and they entered intoan agreement with him.
Maybe that's why the judge infact ordered that all of his
aliases be included in the styleof cause, but maybe it was a
warning to future landlords.

(15:53):
So BC Housing eventually enteredinto an agreement with this
fellow that he leave, he vacateBC Housing, and that they would
provide what's described as ararely available rent supplement
to pay the difference betweenhis income assistance and the
market rent of some new privateunit.
He found, for, no doubt, someunfortunate landlord who maybe

(16:14):
didn't look up the fellow'sbackground, maybe didn't look up
the fellow's background.
Now, having come to thatunusual agreement to pay him
more to get out, he then went onto breach the agreement and
refused to leave, and so BCHousing then went to the
residential tenancy branch andgot an order that he get out,
and he then decided he wanted toappeal the order to get out.

(16:37):
But because of this fellow'sreally problematic history,
including in a previous filewhere he filed what the judge
described as numerous unfoundedclaims and repeated
inappropriate conduct, he hadbeen declared what's referred to
as a vexatious litigant.
And when you get declared avexatious litigant, what it
means is that you need to getpermission from a judge before

(16:59):
you're allowed to go and suesomebody.

Steve Young (17:01):
Right.
Wow, I didn't even know thisexisted.
Wow, that's interesting.

Michael Mulligan (17:07):
Legal system kind of operates a little bit of
the expectation that people aregoing to act reasonably Right,
and if you're not somebody who'sacting reasonably and you're
inclined to just sue people forvarious unfounded reasons and
drag people into court and so on, you know you can imagine
that's rather unpleasant.
And so this declaration ofbeing a vexatious litigant is

(17:28):
what the system does to preventthat.
And so this fellow wound up infront of this poor Supreme Court
judge.
She's a nice person.
She actually used to be crowncounsel over here before she
became a judge.
She had to listen to a full dayhearing with this fellow about
his desire to appeal thedecision from residential
tenancy branch to effectivelyget out and finally vacate BC

(17:50):
housing, to go then and accepthis rarely available rent
supplement to move in somewhereelse a rarely available rent
supplement to move in somewhereelse.
And during the course of that,that's to say the full day
hearing that this judge had toendure, it also came out that

(18:11):
this fellow not only did theparticular effort to appeal the
decision to get out which wasitself a breach of an agreement
to do just that get out, thefellow had continued to engage
in activity described by thejudge as continuous attacks on
the lawyer for the residentialtenancy branch who has had the
unfortunate job of having torespond to this fellow's efforts

(18:33):
.
And this fellow engaged inbehavior, I guess, sort of akin
to what got him eventuallyousted from BC housing.
He engaged in what's describedby the judge as launching
continuous personal andprofessional attacks on the
lawyer, calling her a liar,referring to her as evil,
sending mass emails to lawyersand other law firms, just

(18:55):
engaging, posting defamatoryvideos on YouTube just almost
unbelievable conduct.
And so the judge, having firstconcluded that there was no
basis for what he was asking for, which was to say he wanted an
interim injunction to permit himto stay longer in the BC

(19:15):
housing location, despite theagreement, agreement to pay and
eventually the order to get outby the residential tenancy
branch, the judge found thatthat had no merit and so refused
that.
But that wasn't the end of itis.
It then went on to both parties,both this fellow Mr Lover Peace
and the housing residentialtenancy branch, seeking what's

(19:40):
referred to as special costs,and in civil cases the concept
of costs applies where,presumably presumptively, the
party who loses is ordered topay part of the legal expenses
of the party who succeeds.
And we have that to encouragepeople not to bring nuisance
lawsuits and also to encouragepeople to settle claims.

(20:03):
So you act reasonably, thinkcarefully about what you're
doing and try to resolve things.
But this concept of specialcosts is intended to be a
punishment or for reprehensibleconduct in the course of how
you're engaging in thelitigation.
And the judge found that thisfellow's approach sending all

(20:25):
these emails to the, calling alawyer a liar and emailing
things to other lawyers and lawfirms and law society and
everyone under the sun hadabsolutely no merit, was in fact
reprehensible and was in fact,deserving of a strong rebuke.
And so the judge did exactlythat.
And not only did she dismissthis fellow's claim after

(20:46):
listening to him for a day, butdetermined that that kind of
special costs award wasappropriate.
And the challenge, of course andthis may also explain why you'd
have somebody in that positionas a frequent flyer, vexatious
litigant is he has no money, andso the issue is okay, well, how

(21:06):
much should the special costsaward be?
And the judge concluded that,but for the fact that he had no
money, or very little money, itwould have been a $5,000 award
against him to teach him alesson not to behave in that way
, but because of his financialcircumstances, she significantly
tempered that award to $2,500,but indicated that if he were to

(21:28):
continue with that kind ofconduct he could expect those
figures to go up and up.
And so hopefully the fellow hasgotten the message and, as I
said, the fact that the judgespecifically ordered that the
style of cause be amended toreflect his various aliases may
have been an intent, may havebeen an effort to try to warn

(21:49):
others, if they wind up inlitigation with any of these
aliases, about just how thingscan go south and that you are in
fact dealing with somebody whois a vexatious litigant.
So that's the latest from theBC Supreme Court against the
unsuccessful claim against theresidential tenancy branch.

Steve Young (22:07):
Thank you as always .
Enjoy the three cases and havea good week and enjoy talking to
Rob next week.
Thanks so much.
It's always great to be here.
Michael Mulligan, legallySpeaking on CFAX 1070.