The District of North Vancouver, one councillor and one senior staff member have filed a lawsuit accusing a council critic of harassment, defamation, and interference with the business of the municipality.
Since 2015, Hazen Colbert has specifically targeted Coun. Jim Hanson and clerk James Gordon, the claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court states.
The suit cites a number of emails sent by Colbert to staff in which he accuses the district clerk of corruption. He also sent emails wrongly alleging Hanson is mentally unfit and corrupt and targeting Hanson’s daughter “in malicious and demeaning manner,” the court documents state.
The district, Hanson and Gordon are seeking a court order barring Colbert from harassing them or district staff and from publishing defamatory things about them, as well as an order prohibiting him from interfering with municipal staff. They are also seeking punitive damages.
“Mr. Colbert’s misconduct constitutes a marked departure from ordinary standards of decent behaviour. Punitive damages are justified to punish Mr. Colbert for his conduct to date and to deter him from engaging in similar conduct in the future,” the claim states.
In an email response sent to most members of council (although not Hanson) and copied to the North Shore News on May 16, Colbert wrote:
“Your hate and my resistance of it will be the natural conclusion of my life journey into fighting oppression and learning to be a self-represented litigant in the justice system. I will win. I will not settle. I will win at trial. I am good at what I do. I like it,” he wrote.
