Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of Patricia Element as a vexatious litigant (plaideuse quérulente) under articles 51 and 55 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Superior Court’s civil regulations
• Impact of Ms. Element’s repeated, largely unsuccessful proceedings before the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT), Commission d’accès à l’information (CAI), and Cour du Québec on the finding of abuse of process
• Evidentiary weight of prior judicial and administrative findings of quérulence (2019, 2022, and the TAT’s 2024 decision) in assessing her current litigation conduct
• Assessment of the judicial review application (pourvoi en contrôle judiciaire) as late, devoid of reasonable grounds, and illustrative of obstinacy and narcissism rather than legitimate legal challenge
• Evaluation of the CAI and Cour du Québec proceedings regarding the authenticity of Ms. Element’s job description as manifestly ill-founded once she effectively conceded the document’s identity
• Scope and proportionality of remedial orders restricting Ms. Element’s ability to initiate new proceedings or disciplinary complaints without prior authorization, including costs of justice in favor of Héma-Québec

Background and factual context

Patricia Element was employed by Héma-Québec from 2010 until her dismissal in March 2022 for insubordination. Her termination did not occur in a vacuum; it followed a deteriorating employment relationship and led to a cascade of post-termination litigation. Ms. Element contested the disciplinary measures and her dismissal before the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT), alleging wrongful treatment and, in particular, that Héma-Québec had unilaterally altered her job description prior to firing her. Parallel to the employment dispute, Ms. Element had a history of intense and contentious litigation. She had already been declared a vexatious litigant (plaideuse quérulente) twice by the Superior Court in 2019 and 2022 in disputes involving her former spouse, his new partner, and members of her former in-laws. This prior pattern of conduct set the backdrop for the present case, in which the Court had to determine whether her more recent actions against Héma-Québec and related actors crossed the line into abusive use of the justice system.

Previous findings of quérulence and the TAT proceedings

The Tribunal administratif du travail became a central forum for Ms. Element’s post-termination claims. She instituted seven separate complaints against Héma-Québec and certain of its employees. Faced with a growing procedural record and repeated filings, the TAT ultimately declared Ms. Element a vexatious litigant in January 2024. That decision subjected any new proceedings before the TAT to the prior authorization of the tribunal’s president, effectively limiting her ability to keep multiplying claims. Rather than accepting that determination, Ms. Element then pursued several attempts to have the TAT reverse or revise its own decision. On three separate occasions in February 2024 and March 2025, she sought revision or revocation of the TAT’s quérulence judgment. Each time, the TAT president refused her requests, finding them manifestly doomed to fail. These repeated, unsuccessful challenges to the TAT decision later became key indicators, in the Superior Court’s view, of an entrenched pattern of obstinacy rather than reasoned legal challenge.

Judicial review application in the Superior Court

In May 2025, sixteen months after the TAT’s original ruling, Ms. Element filed a judicial review application (pourvoi en contrôle judiciaire) in the Superior Court, asking that the TAT’s quérulence decision be set aside. The Superior Court scrutinized this application both procedurally and substantively. It found, first, that the judicial review was filed out of time, making it defective on a basic procedural level. More importantly, the Court concluded that the application did not raise any reasonable ground on which to contest the January 2024 TAT judgment or the subsequent administrative refusals to revise it. The Court viewed the judicial review not as a good-faith attempt to correct a legal error but as one more step in a relentless effort to overturn any adverse ruling. This persistence, combined with the absence of plausible legal grounds, was taken as evidence of the two hallmark traits of a vexatious litigant: extreme obstinacy and an inability to accept judicial authority.

Access to information dispute and proceedings before the CAI and Cour du Québec

Alongside the TAT proceedings, Ms. Element engaged the Commission d’accès à l’information (CAI) in connection with her employment-related allegations. She claimed that Héma-Québec had unilaterally modified her job description before dismissing her and sought disclosure of the written job description that was in force during her employment. In July 2023, she asked the CAI to compel Héma-Québec to provide that document. In October 2023, Héma-Québec complied, producing a written job description and noting that the same document had already been sent to her in December 2020. Ms. Element then disputed the authenticity of the October 2023 document and escalated the issue to the CAI. After review, the CAI determined in May 2024 that there was no evidence that the 2023 document was inauthentic or different from the version sent in 2020. When she requested revision, the CAI rejected that request in July 2024. Undeterred, Ms. Element appealed the CAI decision to the Cour du Québec. The appeal was set for hearing on 17 December 2024 despite her attempt to obtain a postponement. At the hearing, she effectively acknowledged that the October 2023 job description was identical to the one provided in December 2020, stripping her challenge of any practical relevance and rendering the appeal moot. The Superior Court characterized these CAI and Cour du Québec proceedings as manifestly ill-founded and another example of entrenchment and procedural abuse.

Conduct in relation to the present quérulence motion

Héma-Québec brought the present motion in the Superior Court seeking to have Ms. Element declared a vexatious litigant and to restrict her ability to commence new proceedings or disciplinary complaints against it, its personnel, and its legal representatives. In May 2025, the Court convened a case management conference in anticipation of the hearing set for 16 September 2025 on the quérulence application. Despite proper notice, Ms. Element did not attend. At that conference, the Court ruled that the existing record was sufficient and that the sixteen witnesses she had announced were not necessary for adjudicating the motion. On 5 September 2025, however, she served Héma-Québec with a “Notice of management” to be presented on 16 September. Through that notice, she sought to suspend the proceedings, obtain authorization to call seventeen witnesses, and have Héma-Québec’s counsel declared disqualified. In the same document, she asserted that the TAT decisions labelling her vexatious were “false” and insisted that her judicial review and a professional conduct complaint against her former lawyer, Me Anne Côté, had to be decided in priority before Héma-Québec’s quérulence motion could be heard. The Superior Court rejected this position, noting that her requests did not truly concern case management but rather attempted to relitigate or circumvent prior management decisions made in May 2025. The Court found that the notice and her broader conduct again reflected a refusal to accept previous judicial and administrative rulings and a willingness to attack opposing counsel and other justice system participants without cogent justification.

Legal framework for abuse of process and vexatious litigants

The Court grounded its analysis in the Civil Code of Québec and the Code of Civil Procedure. Articles 6 and 7 of the Civil Code require parties to exercise their civil rights in good faith, proportionately, and reasonably, without intent to harm others. Articles 51 and 55 of the Code of Civil Procedure give courts broad authority to curb abusive proceedings. Article 51 defines abuse to include manifestly ill-founded, frivolous, or dilatory actions, vexatious or vexatious conduct, excessive or unreasonable use of procedure, and misuse of the courts for purposes that distort the ends of justice, including attempts to stifle public debate. Article 55 specifically empowers the court, where abuse results from quérulence, to prohibit a party from instituting new actions or filing further procedural steps in existing matters without prior authorization from the chief justice or a designated judge. The Court also relied on articles 68 and 69 of the Regulation of the Superior Court in civil matters, which authorize wide-ranging orders of general or limited scope, across districts and across judicial or administrative bodies within the Superior Court’s supervisory power. Existing jurisprudence on vexatious litigants describes such a party as one who shows marked obstinacy and narcissism, usually self-represented, who multiplies disproportionate and vexatious proceedings, often against judges, lawyers, or other justice officials, and who systematically appeals adverse decisions on irrational or borderline arguments. Against this backdrop, the Court emphasized that being declared vexatious in earlier, unrelated litigation does not automatically dictate the outcome in a new matter. The assessment must focus on the specific facts and procedural history of the case at hand. Nevertheless, when the Court examined Ms. Element’s conduct since the earlier judgments, it found no improvement: she continued to pursue numerous, weak or meritless proceedings, challenge adverse decisions futilely, and target opposing lawyers and justice auxiliaries.

Findings on quérulence and the need for restrictive orders

After reviewing the procedural history before the TAT, CAI, Cour du Québec, and the Superior Court, the judge concluded that Ms. Element’s pattern of litigation was abusive and met the legal test for quérulence. Her repeated and unsuccessful attempts to revisit the TAT’s 2024 decision, her time-barred and groundless judicial review, the access-to-information and appeal proceedings that became moot once she conceded the documents were identical, and her attempts to delay or derail the present motion all pointed to excessive and unreasonable use of court and tribunal processes. The Court was particularly concerned by the way she had already turned her attention to auxiliary actors in the system—judges, justice officials, and lawyers—through complaints and accusations. In the judge’s view, there was a real risk she would initiate further unjustified proceedings or disciplinary complaints against Héma-Québec’s counsel if her access to the justice system remained unrestricted. This justified prompt and robust intervention to protect both the integrity of the justice system and those who must participate in it.

Scope of the orders and outcome of the case

In its dispositive portion, the Superior Court allowed Héma-Québec’s motion and formally declared Patricia Element a vexatious litigant within the meaning of article 55 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the relevant provisions of the Superior Court’s civil regulation. The Court prohibited her from filing any new legal action, complaint, or procedure against Héma-Québec, its employees, representatives, officers, elected officials, insurers, and current or former lawyers before the Superior Court, the Cour du Québec, or any administrative tribunal or body under the Superior Court’s supervisory jurisdiction, unless she first obtains written authorization from the chief justice of the Superior Court, the chief judge of the Cour du Québec, a judge designated by them, or the head of the relevant tribunal or administrative body, as appropriate. It also barred her from filing any disciplinary or ethical complaints against Héma-Québec’s lawyers unless the syndic of the Barreau du Québec authorizes such a complaint under the Code des professions. Finally, the Court directed all court clerks and registry officials to refuse any filing from her that has not been so authorized, ordered provisional execution of the judgment notwithstanding any appeal, and awarded costs of justice in favor of Héma-Québec. Héma-Québec is therefore the successful party in this case. The judgment does not specify any particular monetary figure for costs, damages, or other sums; apart from the general award of “frais de justice”, the total monetary amount ordered in Héma-Québec’s favor cannot be determined from the decision.