Nova Scotia Annotated Civil Procedure Rules
Part 17 - Administration
Rule 88 - Abuse of Process
Educational Notes
This Rule provides a procedure for controlling abuses of the court’s process and allows for a wide range of remedies, including dismissal or judgment, a stay, indemnification, striking or amending a pleading, expunging or sealing an affidavit, or an injunction. Vexatious litigants may be restrained from commencing further proceedings without permission of the court (R.88.02). Rule 88.05 allows the court to determine whether a claim amounts to an abuse of process before the rest of the claim is determined.
Rule 88 makes clear that unsustainable pleadings should be challenged under Rule 13 – Summary Judgment, rather than as an abuse of process.
88.03 - Unsustainable pleading
88.03 Unsustainable pleading
(1) It is not an abuse of process to make a claim, or raise a defence or ground of contest, that may on the pleadings alone be unsustainable, and such a claim, defence, or ground may be challenged under Rule 13 - Summary Judgment.
(2) A party or the prothonotary may make a motion to strike a pleading on the basis that it amounts to an abuse of process.
- Pleadings, striking or amending where abusive
- Striking or amending where abuse of process
- Unsustainable pleading, whether abusive
- Unsustainable pleading not abuse of process