Access to the courts is a fundamental right, but what happens when a person uses it not to assert legitimate rights, but to harass others or clog the system to excess? This is quarrelsomeness: the tendency to exercise one’s right to litigate in an excessive or unreasonable manner. Far from being a marginal phenomenon, it persists, as several recent decisions show.
How Do You Recognize a Quarrelsome Litigant?
Barreau du Québec v. Srougi, taken up again in Gougoux v. Richard1 and L.A. v. Bourgeois2, identifies several telling traits: stubbornness and narcissism; a tendency to act as plaintiff rather than defendant; multiplication of vexatious proceedings, sometimes against lawyers or judges; repetition of the same questions despite repeated failures; inventive arguments that verge on the irrational; eventual inability to pay costs; systematic appeals or retractions; self-representation. These criteria are indicators, not cumulative conditions. The real test remains the excessive or unreasonable exercise of the right to litigate.
A Framework Set Out in the Code of Civil Procedure
The Code of Civil Procedure allows courts to declare a legal proceeding abusive, even on their own initiative.3 When the abuse stems from quarrelsomeness, the court may prohibit the party from filing a new proceeding without the prior authorization of the chief justice.4 The goal: to filter, not block, access to justice, in order to preserve the system’s limited resources.
Recent Example: Shahriari v. OACIQ (2025 QCCS 3376)
This case, decided this past fall, illustrates the scale quarrelsomeness can reach. A self-represented litigant generated 18 hearings before 14 judges over two years,5 in addition to filing a defence and cross-claim of more than 700 paragraphs across 140 pages.6 A simple disagreement over a sublease escalated into an all-out dispute against a real estate brokerage regulator, its officers, the Attorney General of Quebec, and trustees of a publicly traded fund.7 The court reiterated that a finding of quarrelsomeness must be reserved for the clearest cases,8 but concluded that firm intervention was warranted.9 RSS acted in this case as counsel for the OACIQ and as counsel for the trustees of the BTB real estate investment fund, and prevailed.
A Graduated Approach
Courts don’t jump straight to a general declaration of quarrelsomeness. There’s a gradation, from lighter measures up to that declaration.10 As the Court of Appeal has noted, “the bar for abuse of process must remain set high.”11
The Real Cost for Businesses and Individuals
Quarrelsomeness carries a very real cost for those targeted by it. Responding to disproportionate proceedings requires mobilizing considerable legal resources, sometimes for years: every motion must be read, analyzed, and contested. Beyond the financial costs, courts recognize that this kind of conduct “poisons the life” of those targeted, causing them “worry, stress, and unfair financial burden,”12 while also depriving other litigants — through the overload it creates — of reasonable access to the justice system.
A New Reality: Quarrelsomeness in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Generative AI complicates this picture. Drafting a 700-paragraph proceeding once required enormous effort. AI tools now make it possible to produce, in a matter of minutes, voluminous filings packed with references that look credible but are often fabricated. In Specter Aviation Limited v. Laprade, the Superior Court sanctioned a self-represented litigant who filed a defence containing nonexistent precedents, ruling that the flexibility granted to unrepresented parties “can never translate into tolerance for falsehood.”13
Quarrelsomeness is not a marginal problem. It tests the balance the justice system must maintain between access to the courts and the protection of judicial resources for the benefit of all litigants. Knowing how to recognize the signs of quarrelsomeness, and knowing the remedies available to address it, becomes all the more essential at a time when technological tools risk multiplying its reach.
1Gougoux v. Richard, 2010 QCCS 4483, para. 24, citing Barreau du Québec v. Srougi, 2007 QCCS 685 (J. Wery).
2L.A. v. Bourgeois, 2023 QCCA 512, para. 19, citing Pogan v. Barreau du Québec, 2010 QCCS 1458, paras. 82-83.
3Art. 51 C.C.P.
4Art. 55 C.C.P.
5Shahriari v. Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ), 2025 QCCS 3376, para. 6.
6Ibid., paras. 16 and 34.
7Ibid., para. 2.
9Ibid., paras. 107 and 144.
10Shahriari v. OACIQ, 2025 QCCS 3376, para. 122.
11Biron v. 150 Marchand Holdings, 2020 QCCA 1537, para. 126, cited in Shahriari v. OACIQ, 2025 QCCS 3376, para. 99.
12Shahriari v. Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ), 2025 QCCS 3376, para. 85.
13Specter Aviation Limited v. Laprade, 2025 QCCS 3521, paras. 43 and 58-59;
