$66.6M lawsuit filed by anti-vaccine activist thrown out of court

A $66.6 million lawsuit filed by anti-vaccine activist Daniel Nagase was thrown out of B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Friday amid strange antics from Nagase, a former family doctor.

In delivering his ruling, Justice Michael Tammen said Nagase's claim was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process.

Nagase, who represented himself and made nonsensical pseudo-legal arguments, was not in the courtroom when the decision was read. 

At the start of the hearing, he stood in the hallway and tried to address the judge by speaking loudly through an open door, despite a plexiglass barrier and about 15 metres separating the two.

He eventually entered the court and made brief comments when it was his turn to speak, but only after Tammen advised him of the process.

"This notion of participating for certain purposes and making speeches and going in and out of the court simply is not known in our courts," said Tamman. "So you've got to make a decision whether you're going to participate or not."

Over a dozen Nagase supporters attended the hearing, at times expressing their displeasure from within the separated and glassed-in gallery of Courtroom 20, which was built to hold the Air India trial. 

The $66.6 million claim accused B.C. Supreme Court Master Grant Taylor of violating, among other things, Nagase's "right of protection and preservation of the vessels of my bloodline [and] … the vessels of the souls of my children."

The amended version suggested Taylor was responsible for Nagase's children being vaccinated against COVID-19 because it was Taylor who wrote an order barring Nagase from contacting either child between November 2021 and November 2022, during which time they presumably received their shots.

The claim said the children "have been subject to future harm enabled by wrongful orders" and asked for $33.3 million in damages for each child, plus future medical expenses, to be paid jointly by Taylor and the B.C. Supreme Court, which was also named as a defendant. 

Crown attorney Michael Kleisinger brought the application to have the lawsuit struck on behalf of the B.C. attorney general. Nagase was also ordered to pay costs of $1,108.08.

Nagase is a family physician who no longer holds a medical licence and was the subject of a public warning related to his scientifically unsupported statements about COVID-19.

Over the last three years, Nagase has risen to prominence for his public agitation against measures related to COVID-19. 

He has frequently repeated false and misleading information about vaccines, spreading untrue rumours of a spike in stillbirths at Lions Gate Hospital caused by the shot and giving an anti-vaccine speech in front of hanged effigies of B.C. politicians at the legislature in Victoria.

He has resigned his licence to practise medicine in this province but still faces a disciplinary hearing with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. for misconduct related to what the college describes as his "misleading, incorrect, or inflammatory statements about vaccinations, treatments and measures for COVID-19." 

In Alberta, where he has also worked, his registration has been cancelled for non-renewal and non-payment of fees. The College of Physicians of Alberta has also issued a notice saying he's forbidden from writing mask or vaccine exemption letters, prescribing the anti-parasitic medication ivermectin or treating any COVID-19 patients.

In October 2021, Alberta Health Services issued a warning about Nagase's public claims of using ivermectin to cure COVID-19 in elderly patients, stating that neither the veterinary nor human versions of the drug have been proven safe or effective treatments for the virus.