Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

Munyonzwe Hamalengwa is a lawyer in Toronto.  He recently lost a case at the Ontario Court of Appeal that warrants some comment.

Mr. Hamalengwa was representing a person on a Legal Aid certificate in a criminal matter.  On at least one occasion, he sent a non-lawyer to address the court on the matter.  A judge hearing the matter became concerned that Mr. Hamalengwa might be billing Legal Aid improperly for the time spent by the non-lawyer, so he wrote a letter to the complaints department of the Law Society.

Mr. Hamalengwa was not impressed.  He sued the judge.  Mr. Hamalengwa happens to be black, and claimed that the judge was involved in racial profiling by complaining about Mr. Hamalengwa.  The judge brought a motion to dismiss the action, on two grounds.

First, judges enjoy absolute immunity in the exercise of their judicial functions.  Here, the judge was concerned about the conduct of a lawyer representing an accused in his court.  His conduct is immune from a lawsuit and the judge hearing the motion dismissed the lawsuit on that ground.

Secondly, just for good measure, the judge addressed the other ground.  Complaints made to a governing body about the conduct of a person governed by that body are also privileged.  That means that the lawsuit was faulty on that ground as well.

The judge asked for costs of $25,000 against Mr. Hamalengwa.  The court said that the amount of costs sought would only be appropriate if there was blameworthy conduct on the part of Mr. Hamalengwa.  The court went on to say that any lawyer, upon review of the law, would have known that Mr. Hamalengwa’s lawsuit had no chance of success. 

“To proceed with a hopeless case is blameworthy conduct.”  For that reason, the court awarded $25,000 costs against Mr. Hamalengwa. 

Now, one would think that Mr. Hamalengwa would retreat in shame and hope the world forgot about his hopeless lawsuit against the judge.  Not he!  He appealed the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal. 

The Court of Appeal took little time in dismissing the appeal.  The Court said: “An allegation of racial animus is analogous to allegations of fraud, misconduct or dishonesty, which are viewed as a sufficient basis to award costs on the substantial indemnity scale when not substantiated.”

Mr. Hamalengwa was ordered to pay an additional $10,000 for costs of the appeal.

This case both comforts and angers me.  I am comforted because I see a person with a stupid lawsuit being smacked by two courts for his conduct and ordered to pay significant costs.  I am angered because Mr. Hamalengwa is a lawyer and his stupid lawsuit makes all lawyers look bad.  A case like this just reinforces the negative stereotypes that some people have of lawyers. 

One can only hope that Mr. Hamalengwa needs to work hard to make that $35,000 that he owes in costs and he won’t have any more spare time to initiate “hopeless” lawsuits on his own behalf.

His case is yet another example of the old saying:  “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”.