Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Dr. Basaraba's appeal of his chiropractic interim suspension was deemed abandoned after he failed to file the appeal record and subsequently missed the deadline to apply for restoration.

• The Court applied a five-factor test to assess whether restoring the appeal served the interests of justice, weighing arguable merit, reasons for delay, promptness, intention to proceed, and prejudice to the respondent.

• Medical and financial challenges linked to the interim suspension were cited by the applicant as reasons for non-compliance, but the Court was less convinced he had a reasonable excuse for failing to follow the prescribed deadlines.

• The respondent argued the applicant failed to act promptly to restore his appeal, waiting more than 13 weeks from when the appeal was struck to file and serve his restoration application.

• Arguable merit was absent because the applicant relied on an earlier overturned suspension based on procedural fairness grounds that were remedied in the second suspension proceeding.

• Self-represented litigant status does not excuse non-compliance with the procedures and timelines set out in the Alberta Rules of Court.

Background and interim suspension of Dr. Basaraba

Dr. Bradley Basaraba practised as a chiropractor at his clinic in downtown Edmonton. The respondent, the College of Chiropractors of Alberta, imposed an interim suspension pursuant to s 65(1)(b) of the Health Professions Act, RSA 2000, c H-7 (HPA) pending resolution of several disciplinary complaints. Dr. Basaraba applied to the Alberta Court of King's Bench for a stay of the interim suspension, as permitted under s 65(2) of the HPA. On October 1, 2025, the chambers judge denied the stay. She reasoned that granting the stay would result in greater harm to the College and its mandate to protect the public, compared to the harm the applicant would suffer from refusing the stay.

Filing of the appeal and procedural missteps

On October 30, 2025, Dr. Basaraba filed his notice of appeal, within the one-month deadline per r 14.8(2)(a)(iii). The notice stated the appeal was to be managed through the fast track process per r 14.14 of the Rules. The case management officer wrote to the parties later that day, confirming the appeal had been granted fast track status. The letter noted that the notice did not include a copy of the judgment under appeal as required by the Rules. The letter also provided information about how to determine filing deadlines and warned about consequences flowing from a failure to meet requirements and deadlines. Under the fast track process, the appeal record and transcripts had to be filed and served within one month from the date of filing the notice of appeal, per r 14.16(3)(a) — in this case, by November 30, 2025. Dr. Basaraba failed to meet that deadline. On December 1, 2025, the Registrar struck the appeal as the appeal record had not yet been filed. The Certificate of Registrar – Late Appeal Record, entered into the court record management system, attached further instructions on how to apply to restore the appeal, noting that per rr 14.47 and 14.65 the application must be made and completed within three months of being struck or it would be deemed abandoned. In this case, the deadline was March 1, 2026. No application to restore was made within that window, and on March 3, 2026, the appeal was deemed abandoned per a "Report of Civil Appeal." Dr. Basaraba eventually filed his application to restore the appeal on March 11, 2026, to be heard by a single appeal judge on April 1, 2026.

The legal test for restoring an abandoned appeal

The Court of Appeal, per Justice Tamara Friesen, applied the established five-factor test from Raymond James Ltd v Kostic, 2025 ABCA 296, and Prochazka v Alberta (Maintenance Enforcement Program), 2014 ABCA 448. The factors considered were: (a) whether the appeal has arguable merit; (b) the reason for the defect or delay that caused the appeal to be struck; (c) whether the applicant acted promptly in taking steps to cure the defect and have the appeal restored; (d) whether the applicant intended to proceed with the appeal during the period of delay; and (e) whether the respondents would suffer any prejudice if the appeal is restored. The Court noted that while no single factor is determinative, a lack of arguable merit is often fatal to an application to restore an appeal. It further emphasized that when an appeal has been deemed abandoned, the Court will exercise its discretion to restore the appeal sparingly, citing Prairie West Homes Inc v Baraka Homes Ltd, 2023 ABCA 256, and Allen v Alberta (Seniors and Community Supports), 2015 ABCA 238.

The applicant's position and the respondent's response

Dr. Basaraba, who represented himself, argued that he had always intended to proceed with the appeal and that the delays to date were due to exceptional personal circumstances, including medical and financial challenges linked to the interim suspension. As evidence, he provided various documents, including a letter dated September 26, 2025 from his family physician recommending he be excused from attending an upcoming hearing due to the medical issues described therein. He said he was not responsible for the delay in obtaining the transcripts, relying on what appears to be a chronological list of unspecified email correspondence with the Alberta Justice and Solicitor General. He argued his appeal had merit because a previous court set aside an earlier interim suspension, presumably adopting the reasons in that earlier decision as the basis for his proposed appeal, citing Basaraba v College of Chiropractors, 2025 ABKB 176. The respondent countered that the applicant had provided general excuses in trying to explain the delay and that these did not amount to exceptional circumstances. Citing Wass v Wass, 2020 ABCA 180, the respondent argued that the realities of everyday life cannot be an excuse for missed deadlines. The respondent further argued the applicant failed to act promptly to restore his appeal, waiting more than 13 weeks to file and serve his application, and that the hearing itself took place on April 1, 2026 — one month after the deadline requiring the applicant to appear in Court. The respondent submitted that the delay showed a lack of a bona fide intention to appeal, prejudiced the respondent, and that the applicant had not established any arguable merit. The earlier interim suspension was set aside based on a lack of procedural fairness which was remedied in the second suspension proceeding and did not factor in to the second decision, making it irrelevant to the proposed appeal.

The Court's analysis and ruling

Justice Friesen accepted that the applicant intended to continue with the appeal despite having failed to follow the prescribed deadlines. She was less convinced he had a reasonable excuse for failing to follow those deadlines, although she appreciated he is currently facing significant and real health and financial challenges. She was not convinced he acted reasonably promptly, given that the reason for the appeal being struck was a failure to file the appeal record, and the reason for the appeal being deemed abandoned was a failure to file an application to restore within the allotted time period. The matter was designated a fast track appeal, and at every step, the Court's registrar was diligent in providing him with the information he required to proceed with the appeal within the timelines required by the Rules. While self-represented litigants are not expected to meet the same practice standards as lawyers, they are still required to know and follow the procedures and timelines set out in the Rules. Even if the Court accepted that the applicant had a reasonable excuse for the delay, and in the circumstances acted reasonably promptly, the application still failed because the appeal itself stood no reasonable prospect of success. The applicant pointed to the earlier interim suspension in challenging the lawfulness of the current interim suspension, baldly asserting the chambers judge committed a "palpable and overriding error" in reaching a different conclusion. The earlier suspension was overturned due to procedural unfairness — specifically, the College's failure to provide the applicant with sufficient particulars of the disciplinary charges he was facing. The issue of particularization played no role in the second stay proceeding, which focussed quite properly on assessing the facts through the framework of the tripartite test for a stay set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in RJR-MacDonald Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 1994 CanLII 117 (SCC), [1994] 1 SCR 311. Furthermore, the first chambers judge in the earlier proceeding had specifically stated that the Complaints Director was at liberty to submit another request for an interim suspension of the applicant's permit to a different person or committee designated by the council pursuant to s 65 of the HPA. There was nothing inherently unfair about the College pursuing and obtaining a subsequent interim suspension. For all of these reasons, the application to restore the abandoned appeal was dismissed, with the College of Chiropractors of Alberta being the successful party. No monetary award was at issue in this decision, as the matter concerned the procedural question of whether the deemed-abandoned appeal should be restored.