A Vancouver lawyer is giving up his license after filing a “senseless and vexatious” lawsuit against his neighbor

According to the Law Society of BC, a Vancouver lawyer who filed a frivolous lawsuit laced with pseudo-legal insignia has given up her license to practice law

Naomi Arbabi surrendered her driver’s license earlier this month, ending a temporary suspension that had been in place since December, a spokesperson for the law society told CBC News.

Her resignation does not automatically end any investigations into Arbabi’s actions, according to the law association. However, the spokesman said he could not confirm whether an investigation was ongoing, explaining that all investigations remain confidential until they result in a citation or consent.

The news follows the dismissal of Arbabi’s lawsuit against her neighbor Colleen McLelland, whom she accused of trespassing for allowing the strata of their apartment building to install an opaque glass privacy partition on her rooftop deck.

The associate judge who heard the case said Arbabi’s lawsuit bears “many of the hallmarks of claims made by OPCA (Organized Pseudo-Legal Commercial Claims)” litigants – a completely debunked and completely ineffective class of legal theory favored by fringe groups like the Sovereign Citizens and Free People of the Earth.

Arbabi did not respond to requests for comment on the license waiver.

But on Monday, she posted on Instagram, writing: “You might think I’m crazy, but… everything makes so much sense inside me that I don’t always realize how crazy it may seem to the outside world.”

In the lawsuit filed in October, Arbabi identified herself as “I, the woman” and stated that the case would be heard by the “Naomi Arbabi court”.

Arbabi wrote that “this is a claim based on the law of the land and not a complaint based on statutes or statutes of legal codes.”

Arbabi claimed that her “trespass” lawsuit would be heard by the “Naomi Arbabi court”. (Peter Scobie/CBC)

When she appeared in court to fight a motion to dismiss her claim, Arbabi stated that she presented herself as a “living, breathing, living woman” rather than a lawyer, and denied any affiliation with organized pseudo-legal groups.

She told the assessor that her name would be lower case “i”.

“Just because I am licensed to practice law in the legal jurisdiction of the province of British Columbia does not make me a lawyer, in the same way that having a driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle does not make me a driver,” Arbabi said.

“Abuse of process”

BC Supreme Court Associate Justice Susanna Hughes wrote in a Jan. 19 decision that the lawsuit is “frivolous and vexatious because it denies the authority of the court.”

She went on to call the lawsuit “an abuse of process because plaintiff filed an initiating document in an attempt not to commence a lawful proceeding in this court, but instead to use the infrastructure of this court for the purposes of her fictitious court.”

Hughes pointed to several areas where the argument was consistent with that of the OPCA litigants, pointing to the landmark Meads vs. decision. Meads in 2012 by Alberta.

The assessor ordered Arbabi to pay special costs, saying she had violated the oath she took when called to the bar by promising not to “promote trials under flimsy pretexts.”

Arbabi agreed to meet with a reporter in November to discuss her lawsuit and its rationale, but upon arrival she refused to answer any questions. Instead, she read a warning warning of legal consequences if the story was published without her consent.

In a recent interview with a local podcast host, Arbabi described her approach as “a law for humanity.” She said she experienced an “awakening” during the Covid-19 pandemic about “government overreach.”

Early in the conversation, she joked, “I’m still a lawyer, but I may not be soon.”