Dr. Donald J. Netolitzki KC

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Introduction

Donald J. Netolitzky (Ph.D. Microbiology, University of Alberta, 1995; LL.B., University of Alberta, 2005; LL.M., University of Alberta, 2020; K.C., Alberta, 2022) is the Complex Litigant Management Counsel for the Alberta Court of King’s Bench.

Donald J. Netolitzky would have to be the world’s most prolific writer and prominent scholar on the pseudolaw phenomenon. He is the Complex Litigant Management Counsel for the Alberta Court of King’s Bench in Canada, and documented the rise and fall of the Freeman on the Land and other localised pseudolaw movements. His experience as a microbiologist has greatly assisted in data analysis of particular species of argument and vexatious litigation that present before the Court, and through this lens he provides an incredibly unique perspective of the mind virus that is pseudolaw.

On Twitter: Dr Donald J Netolitzky KC @DNetolitzky

Literature Index

Trilogy

Pseudolaw

Self-Represented Litigants and Litigation

Trilogy

The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada” (2016):

This article discusses the history of the poorly understood Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) phenomena. Drawing from various reported and unreported sources, the author begins his review in the 1950s with two distinct pseudolegal traditions that evolved separately in both the United States and Canada. Focusing on the prominent members of each era of the OPCA movement, the author explains in depth the concepts behind the movement and what it means for the legal system in Canada today. The article culminates with an analysis of the current OPCA groups and how Canadian courts should respond to future OPCA litigants, while also giving reasons as to why it is important for Canadians to take notice of this movement due to potential security risks.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “The Dead Sleep Quiet: History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada – Part II” (July 2022):

A US-sourced set of false law concepts, “pseudolaw,” entered into Canada circa 2000. A localized version of pseudolaw was adopted by two ideologically distinct Canadian populations: 1) Detaxers, and 2) Freemen-on-the-Land. This article investigates the fate of these “first wave” pseudolaw phenomena, and their direct descendants. Each remain largely dead and inactive, despite near ideal conditions for a resurgence. This pattern is unexpected, since pseudolaw thrives and expands in stress situations.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “New Hosts for an Old Disease: History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada – Part III” (September 2022):

US-sourced false law concepts, “pseudolaw,” were the schematic backbone for a number of Canadian anti-authority and criminal populations that operated in 2000-2015. These “first wave” pseudolaw groups and their descendants are now dead or inactive. A “second wave” of novel pseudolaw groups has since emerged, energized and catalyzed by economic stress and the COVID-19 pandemic. This article reviews Canadian second wave pseudolaw and its host populations, documents second-wave pseudolaw theories and activities, and examines their comparatively limited success. Finally, the potential of violence building off pseudolaw in Canada is investigated.

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Pseudolaw

Pseudolaw is a collection of legally incorrect but legal-sounding rules that allegedly replace and displace the accepted law of jurisdictions, worldwide. This project investigates and characterizes beliefs, systems, social structures, populations, and key individuals who endorse and/or propagate pseudolaw.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “The Challenges of Pseudo-Legal Arguments from Self-Represented Litigants” (2014)

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments [OPCA] in Canada; an Attack on the Legal System” (March 2016):

In Canada, persons commonly known as Freemen-on-the-Land, Sovereign Citizens, Moors, and Detaxers advance unorthodox legal rules and theories called pseudolaw. Courts in Canada consistently reject pseudolaw as invalid and incorrect. Some pseudolaw purports to authorize individuals to take extraordinary steps, including retaliation against government and institutional actors who are perceived as wrongdoers, formation of vigilante court and police organizations, and even violence. This paper reviews how pseudolaw rationalizes extralegal actions, and examines examples of illegal attack behaviour that have occurred in Canada. While most persons who endorse and practice pseudolaw do not engage in violence, some subpopulations which accept both pseudolaw’s concepts and conspiratorial context plausibly represent an elevated risk. However, “paper terrorism”, document based retaliatory steps, is very common.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments in Canadian Inter-Partner Family Law Court Disputes” (July 2017):

This article addresses the phenomenon of Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) from the lens of inter-partner disputes. The author begins by briefly reviewing the history of OPCA in Canada, and then proceeds to conduct a Canada-wide survey of OPCA judgments that involve inter-spouse conflict. One of the primary cases focused on is the Alberta judgment, Meads v. Meads. The author finds that there are few OPCA judgments to draw from, which he concludes is a result of the character of OPCA pseudolegal concepts. These concepts are typically intended to target government and institutional actors, rather than private individuals, meaning that these arguments are ill suited to family law situations.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “A Rebellion of Furious Paper: Pseudolaw as a Revolutionary Legal System” (May 2018):

Pseudolaw is a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be law. Though pseudolaw is now encountered by courts and government actors in many countries world-wide, pseudolaw is remarkably constant, nation-to-nation. This observation is explained by the crystallization circa 1999-2000 of a matrix of pseudolaw concepts interwoven with a conspiratorial anti-government narrative. This Pseudolaw Memeplex was incubated in the US Sovereign Citizen community. The Memeplex then spread internationally and into additional anti-government communities. That expansion either complemented or replaced other pre-existing pseudolaw systems. The Sovereign Citizen Pseudolaw Memeplex has six core concepts: 1) everything is a contract, 2) silence means agreement, 3) legal action requires an injured party, 4) government authority is defective or limited, 5) the “Strawman” duality, and 6) monetary and banking conspiracy theories. Only the defective government authority component shows significant national- and community-based variation. This adaptation is necessary for the Memeplex to plausibly operate with a new non-Sovereign Citizen host population. The “Strawman” duality is second-order pseudolaw, in that the “Strawman” builds on and ties together the first four concepts for its operation. Together, the components of the Memeplex cause a radical re-balancing of individual vs government and institutional authority. The Memeplex promises free money, immunity from legislation and government regulation, and grants an unprecedented authority for individuals to force obligations on others. The Memeplex also incorporates a powerful conspiratorial anti-bank and anti-state narrative. The Memeplex therefore promises both benefits and a justification for aggrieved anti-authority populations to take illegal action against perceived enemies.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “A Pathogen Astride the Minds of Men: The Epidemiological History of Pseudolaw” (May 2018):

Pseudolaw is a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be law. Pseudolaw has independently emerged in different countries and communities on multiple occasions. Despite that, modern pseudolaw worldwide is remarkably similar, despite that pseudolaw host populations have extremely different political, cultural, and historical profiles. What is common among groups that endorse pseudolaw is: 1) an anti-government and anti-institutional orientation, and 2) a conspiratorial world perspective. Modern pseudolaw has spread, starting from the US Sovereign Citizen population, and then infected a succession of other communities. This progression was facilitated by key individuals and can be tracked, host group to host group. Modern pseudolaw was introduced into Canada by one individual, Eldon Warman, who reframed its concepts to better suit a Commonwealth rather than US context. Warman’s pseudolaw variation spread into several Canadian communities with very different social objectives. The leftist anti-government Freemen-on-the-Land then seeded pseudolaw into the UK, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and several European countries. Some of the resulting groups were stillborn, but in the UK pseudolaw has thrived, but principally as mechanism to attack debt collection, rather than to challenge government authority. US Sovereign Citizen pseudolaw has also directly spread into the culturally distinct urban black Moorish community, and the German and Austrian right-wing Reichsbürger groups. Australia is unique in that its pseudolaw culture incorporates US Sovereign Citizen, Canadian Freeman, and domestic concepts. In other countries, the appearance of modern pseudolaw drove other pre-existing variant law schemes into extinction.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments [“OPCA”] as Magic and Ceremony” (August 2018):

This article discusses ways in which Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) litigants use pseudolegal concepts, techniques, and procedures before the courts. The author begins by looking at where OPCA legal arguments originate, and the historical sources where these arguments find grounding, while assessing the flaws in such. A thorough analysis is then conducted into some of the tactics used by OPCA litigants in order to evade legal consequences, including a survey of global case law where these arguments have been brought before the courts. The article culminates with an analysis of the implications of the use of pseudolaw by OPCA litigants and how tactics permeate through OPCA movements, while looking for solutions in dealing with OPCA litigants as they move through the courts.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Lawyer and Court Representation of Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [OPCA] Litigants in Canada” (August 2018):

Litigants who advance unorthodox law-like concepts, “pseudolaw”, have appeared in Canadian courts for several decades. Courts reject pseudolaw as vexatious and an abuse of court. The motivations and characteristics of pseudolaw litigants differ. Some are principally results-oriented, seeking to use pseudolaw for personal advantage. Others ground their use of pseudolaw on conspiratorial, paranoid, and ideological beliefs. While most litigants who employ pseudolaw are unrepresented, a significant fraction retained lawyers for some or all of their proceedings. The lawyer’s functions also vary. Some are retained to conduct ‘damage control’ after pseudolaw was used but then abandoned. Other lawyers explored dubious but arguable pseudolaw, or were temporarily retained for a specific objective, such as to obtain bail. A small number of rogue lawyers have entirely rejected legal orthodoxy and fully embraced pseudolaw, arguing these concepts for their clients and even themselves. Some pseudolaw litigants for tactical advantage use a flexible litigation strategy, and alternate between representation by a ‘conventional’ lawyer, a rogue lawyer, and self-representation. This poses a unique challenge to court function and litigation management.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Humdrum Becomes a Headache: Lawyers Notarizing Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Documents” (February 2019):

Most lawyers are unlikely to encounter Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) litigants in their usual practice but with one exception. OPCA litigants regularly seek out lawyers to act as notaries and witness unorthodox pseudolegal documents. This activity is highly problematic. OPCA mythology distorts the notaries’ role concluding notaries have judicial or suprajudicial authority, and generate documents that purportedly have a binding authority on individuals, governments and courts. Lawyers breach their professional obligations when they witness and authenticate pseudolegal documents. Ultimately that puts both lawyers and their clients at risk by careless exercise of notary functions.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “After the Hammer: Six Years of Meads v. Meads” (July 2019):

This article addresses the phenomenon of Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) through a retrospective investigation of Meads v. Meads. The author begins by discussing whether Meads has met its objectives, and then proceeds with an analysis of the response to the Meads decision by various audiences, including courts, academics, the OPCA community, and the public. Then, the author examines Meads as a unique type of judgment that incorporates court knowledge as its foundation, allowing Meads, in part, to offer guidance to trial court judges. Finally, the author comments on the insight offered by Meads into the day-to-day realities faced by trial courts as they interact with self represented individuals.

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Donald J. Netolitzky KC and Richard Warman; “Enjoy the silence: Pseudolaw at the Supreme Court of Canada” (March 2020):

Pseudolaw is a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be law, employed by groups including the Detaxer and Freemen -on-the-Land movements. While pseudolaw is universally rejected by Canadian courts , no Supreme Court of Canada decision addresses these concepts. This study reviews 51 unsuccessful Supreme Court leave applications that potentially involve pseudolaw to determine what pseudolaw issues were raised, whether those issues were comprehensible, and therefore if by its silence the Supreme Court has implicitly rejected these concepts. Some pseudolaw-related leave applications were not comprehensible to a legally trained reader; however, the remainder clearly imply that the Supreme Court of Canada has been exposed to the cornerstone concepts of modern pseudolaw, including “Strawman” Theory, and has rejected these ideas as not having national significance.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “A Revolting Itch: Pseudolaw as a Social Adjuvant” (May 2021):

Pseudolaw is a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be superior laws suppressed by conspiratorial actors. Pseudolaw replaces conventional law. Modern pseudolaw emerged around 2000 in right-wing and often racist US Sovereign Citizen communities, but has subsequently spread world-wide to groups with diverse political, racial, economic, and social objectives. Pseudolaw purports to shift authority away from state and institutional actors and to individuals, and is attractive to dissident groups who resist conventional authority. Pseudolaw is politically agnostic since pseudolaw does not change or create the ideologies and objectives of these dissident groups, but instead empowers them. Pseudolaw aggravates interactions between its host populations and conventional government, court, and law enforcement actors. As pseudolaw expanded outside of its Sovereign Citizen incubator, pseudolaw ceased to be sequestered knowledge taught by gurus and held by privileged groups. Pseudolaw has merged into the cultic milieu: a collection of rejected and marginal ideas, resources, and history. A broad range of conspiratorial and outsider communities and individuals mine the cultic milieu. In this context pseudolaw has become a separate legal system available to those who seek a different explanation for law, and the extraordinary privileges and immunities that pseudolaw falsely promises.

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Self-Represented Litigants and Litigation

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Comment on Y.-M. Morisette, “Querulous and Vexatious Litigants as a Disorder of a Modern Legal System” (October 2019):

This paper comments on the accompanying paper by Justice Yves-Marie Morissette of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Yves-Marie Morissette, “Querulous and Vexatious Litigants as a Disorder of a Modern Legal System” (2019) 24:3 Canadian Criminal Law Review 265), and more generally on management of the abusive litigation and litigant phenomenon.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Supreme Court of Canada Self-Represented Appellants in 2017” (November 2020):

Self-Represented Litigants [SRLs] are persons who appear in court and tribunal proceedings without a lawyer. Despite SRLs being the subject of considerable attention as a facet of the “access to justice crisis”, no statistically valid quantitative investigation of a Canadian SRL population exists. Instead, most information that purports to describe Canadian SRLs has been obtained from surveys. This study is a document- and court record-based investigation of litigation activities and characteristics of all SRLs who filed leave to appeal applications in the Supreme Court of Canada [SCC] in 2017. 125 leave to appeal applications were the basis for a quantitative, statistically valid population profile of 122 SRLs and their activities. SRLs are rarely successful at the SCC. While the study population’s applications all completed the leave to appeal process, all but one application were rejected by that gatekeeping process. No procedural obstacle was identified to SRL participation at the SCC. Instead, the SCC extends deadlines, provides fee waivers, and accepts irregular filings. Most applications had only one party on either side. A broad and diverse range of legal dispute types were the substrate for the SRLs’ candidate appeals. Family law subject appeals were rare: 6.4%. Many leave to appeal applications were unsophisticated or problematic documents. Half of the leave to appeal applications did not adequately identify the candidate appeal’s facts and issues. Many applications exhibit problematic litigation characteristics. Two thirds of applications implicated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but very few applications advanced viable claims of that kind. Accurate references to case law and legislation were uncommon. About one in five applications were markedly superior in communicating information, legal arguments, and identifying relevant legal authorities. These more sophisticated applications were also much less likely to make rights-based allegations or complain of misconduct by justice system participants. Male SRLs outnumber female SRLs almost 3:1. SRLs were the party that initiated the dispute underlying three quarters of study applications. Most SRLs focused on their perceived rights, and did not engage Canadian law. Instead, most study SRL leave to appeal applications claimed lower court judges were biased, or engaged in illegal or criminal conduct. Over a third of the study SRLs had filed two or more SCC leave to appeal applications over their lifetime. One filed 19 applications, all unsuccessful. Nearly one in four study SRLs were subject to court access restrictions, an extreme form of litigation management. Problematic litigation activity was associated with repeated SCC appearances. Only a small number of study SRLs self-identified or were identified by the court as having mental health issues, but nearly one quarter of SRLs’ litigation records exhibited an atypical pattern of expanding litigation identified by mental health professionals as a characteristic of querulous paranoia. This investigation developed a profile of the 2017 SCC leave to appeal SRL population and their litigation activity, and provides a model for future parallel investigations. This population is very unlikely to be representative of Canadians SRLs as a whole, but it provides a comparator, and identifies characteristics that are potentially useful to understand what occurs in other Canadian appeal courts.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Enforcement of Leave to Appeal Limitations Periods at the Supreme Court of Canada” (March 2021):

This Article examines how the Supreme Court of Canada enforces limitations periods for leave to appeal applications, comparing the outcomes for represented and self-represented appellants. Observed results in 2017 confirm the Court’s statement in R v Roberge, 2005 SCC 48 that it takes a “generous approach” to deadlines, rarely denying such to applications under one year overdue. Self-represented appellants more often sought limitations deadline extensions, but both represented and self-represented appellants met with comparable degrees of success.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC and Richard Warman; “As the Water Grinds the Stone: Comparison of Represented and Self-represented Appellant Populations in the Federal Court of Appeal” (May 2021):

This article reports a quantitative and statistically reliable population investigation of 552 Federal Court of Appeal proceedings that were appeals by represented and self-represented appellants who, in 2016 or 2017, appealed decisions of the Federal Court or Tax Court of Canada. Appeals by the Crown, non-Crown represented appellants, and self-represented appellants exhibited markedly different frequencies at which appeals were granted, and patterns for how appeals were terminated. Nearly half of Crown appeals were granted, but less than one in twenty self-represented appellants had any degree of success. While 70% of appeals conducted by lawyers completed the appeal process, less than 40% of self-represented appellant proceedings resulted in a full appeal panel hearing. Incomplete appeals by self-represented appellants usually terminated prior to the appeal record stage, and typically were either abandoned or discontinued. The time required to complete appeals for represented and self-represented appellants is similar. The high observed frequency of problematic litigation records for self-represented appellants supports the hypothesis that a “Distillation Effect” is concentrating abusive litigants in appellate forums. High resolution investigation of self-represented appellant subgroups revealed differences within the overall self-represented appellant population. Self-represented appellants emerging from the Federal Court and Tax Court of Canada are different populations. The former were much more likely to have an abusive litigation history, while the latter voluntarily discontinued appeals, and were never subject to Federal Court of Appeal vexatious litigant management steps. Self-represented appellant proceedings that terminated prematurely or that were conducted by persons who are subject to court access restrictions had significantly more filed documents and docket records. Litigation management steps did not reduce the Registry and Court workload resulting from self-represented appellants subject to court access restrictions. These observations challenge modelling self-represented litigants as a single population with uniform characteristics.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “The Walking Wounded: Failure of Self-Represented Litigants in 2017 Supreme Court of Canada Leave to Appeal Applications” (July 2021):

Self-Represented Litigants (SRLs) are persons who appear in court and tribunal proceedings without a lawyer. They are rarely successful at the Supreme Court of Canada. Despite SRLs being the subject of considerable attention as a facet of the “access to justice crisis,” this article reports the first statistical quantitative investigation of a Canadian SRL population. This article examines all of the SRL leave to appeal applications at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017, categorizing them by party type, legal issue, and level of sophistication. No procedural obstacles were identified to SRL participation at the Supreme Court. Instead, the failure of SRLs in Supreme Court proceedings results from the substance of their filings.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “The Grim Parade: Supreme Court of Canada Self-Represented Appellants in 2017” (October 2021):

Self-represented litigants (SRLs) are persons who appear in legal proceedings without a lawyer. This study is a document- and court record-based quantitative, statistically valid profile of 122 SRLs who filed 125 leave to appeal applications in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017. Male SRLs outnumbered female SRLs almost 3:1. Most SRLs focused on their perceived rights and did not engage Canadian law. Instead, most study SRLs claimed lower court judges were biased or engaged in illegal or criminal conduct. Over a third of the study SRLs filed two or more Supreme Court leave to appeal applications over their lifetime. One filed 19 applications, all unsuccessful. Nearly one in four study SRLs were subject to court access restrictions, an extreme form of litigation management. Problematic litigation activity was associated with repeated Supreme Court appearances. Only a small number of study SRLs self-identified or were identified by a court as having mental health issues, but nearly one quarter of SRLs’ litigation records exhibited an atypical pattern of expanding litigation identified by mental health professionals as a characteristic of querulous paranoia. This investigation successfully developed a profile of the 2017 Supreme Court leave to appeal SRL population and their litigation activity and provides a model for future parallel investigations. This population is very unlikely to be representative of Canadians SRLs as a whole, but it represents a comparator and identifies characteristics that are potentially useful to understand what occurs in other Canadian appeal courts.

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Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “Worn Out Faces: Repeat Self-Represented Litigants at the Supreme Court of Canada” (February 2022):

Between 2015-2017, 412 persons without lawyers, self-represented litigants [SRLs], filed Supreme Court of Canada [SCC] leave to appeal applications. One SRL was granted leave (0.22%). 69% of these 412 SRLs filed one leave to appeal application in any year, up to May 1, 2020. However, 128 of the 2015-2017 SRLs submitted two or more SCC leave to appeal applications in any year, up to May 1, 2020. The 128 repeat leave to appeal SRLs in total submitted 506 leave to appeal applications. Their median application volume was three, but the largest application number was twenty. SRLs who filed multiple SCC leave to appeal applications initiated 13.5% of all SCC leave to appeal applications received by that Court in 2015-2017. Multiple characteristics are linked with the number of SCC leave to appeal applications filed by an SRL. As leave to appeal application number increases, so does the frequency and regularity that the SRL returns to the SCC, the number of unique respondents involved in the SRL’s litigation, and the frequency at which a lower court either: 1) concluded the SRL had engaged in abusive litigation, or 2) imposed prospective court access restriction gatekeeping steps on the SRL’s litigation activities. Half of SRLs who file multiple leave to appeal applications switch to new responding parties with each successive application. That observation means these SRLs probably engage in multiple different disputes, and pursue that litigation to Canada’s high court.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC; “A Mighty Fortress is Our Court: Abusive Litigant Abatement at the Supreme Court of Canada” (March 2022):

Post-2000, the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) have encountered a largely consistent workload of law-making appeals and candidate appeal gatekeeping. In contrast, Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) and High Court of Australia (HCA) records indicate those national high courts underwent dramatic changes in candidate appeal volume. Both the SCOTUS (1993-2005) and HCA (1998-2006) experienced a large influx of self-represented litigants (SRLs) whose candidate appeals related to specific complaint types. Court decisions and reports from these periods indicate court functionality was stressed. This article examines the zero-sum relationship between the SCC’s litigation management and gatekeeping activities, and the Court’s core “law-making” function. While at present the SCC does not appear to be undergoing institutional stress, the SCOTUS and HCA experiences, and our newly improved understanding of SCC SRL litigation, permits (1) modelling of a plausible SRL threat scenario to the SCC’s operation, and (2) examining how to implement passive and active defences that respond to threats to the SCC’s critical law-making function.

Donald J. Netolitzki KC and Richard Warman; “As the Water Grinds the Stone: Comparison of Represented and Self-represented Appellant Populations in the Federal Court of Appeal” (March 2022):

This article reports a quantitative and statistically reliable population investigation of 552 Federal Court of Appeal proceedings that were appeals by represented and self-represented appellants who, in 2016 or 2017, appealed decisions of the Federal Court or Tax Court of Canada. Appeals by the Crown, non-Crown represented appellants, and self-represented appellants exhibited markedly different frequencies at which appeals were granted, and patterns for how appeals were terminated. Nearly half of Crown appeals were granted, but less than one in twenty self-represented appellants had any degree of success. While 70% of appeals conducted by lawyers completed the appeal process, less than 40% of self-represented appellant proceedings resulted in a full appeal panel hearing. Incomplete appeals by self-represented appellants usually terminated prior to the appeal record stage, and typically were either abandoned or discontinued. The time required to complete appeals for represented and self-represented appellants is similar. The high observed frequency of problematic litigation records for self-represented appellants supports the hypothesis that a “Distillation Effect” is concentrating abusive litigants in appellate forums. High resolution investigation of self-represented appellant subgroups revealed differences within the overall self-represented appellant population. Self-represented appellants emerging from the Federal Court and Tax Court of Canada are different populations. The former were much more likely to have an abusive litigation history, while the latter voluntarily discontinued appeals, and were never subject to Federal Court of Appeal vexatious litigant management steps. Self-represented appellant proceedings that terminated prematurely or that were conducted by persons who are subject to court access restrictions had significantly more filed documents and docket records. Litigation management steps did not reduce the Registry and Court workload resulting from self-represented appellants subject to court access restrictions. These observations challenge modelling self-represented litigants as a single population with uniform characteristics.

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