Demons on Motorcycles: When Psychiatric Breaks Meet Civil Responsibility

What happens when someone experiencing a psychotic episode intentionally crashes into a motorcyclist they believe is a “demon”? This fascinating exploration of mental illness and legal liability takes us through a landmark BC case that transforms how we understand responsibility when reality breaks down.

The distinction between criminal and civil liability becomes crucial as we follow the story of a man with no prior psychiatric history who suffered a complete psychotic break in 2018. While criminal law might find him not responsible due to mental disorder, civil law focuses on compensation rather than punishment. The judge’s nuanced approach reveals how liability extends beyond just the final moment of incapacity—examining the gradual deterioration that preceded the collision provides vital context for understanding accountability.

This case carries profound implications for anyone interested in mental health advocacy, legal rights, and public safety. The court’s finding of both negligence and battery resulted in a substantial award to the injured voice actor while also creating complex insurance issues since intentional acts typically aren’t covered by policies. Perhaps most strikingly, the vehicle owner—the driver’s then-girlfriend—was also held liable despite her desperate attempts to prevent him from driving once she realized his condition.

We also delve into a separate but equally compelling case involving a Green Party deputy leader whose sentence for criminal contempt was reduced on appeal due to a misapplication of the “step-up principle.” This illuminating example shows how judicial sentencing is constrained by legal principles that ensure proportionality and fairness rather than simply escalating punishments for repeated offences.

Whether you’re a legal professional, mental health advocate, or simply curious about how our justice system navigates these complex intersections, this episode offers valuable insights into how responsibility, compensation, and accountability function when mental capacity is compromised. Share your thoughts on these rulings and join the conversation about where personal responsibility begins and ends.

 

Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is live on CFAX 1070 every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Legally Speaking April 10, 2025

Adam Stirling [00:00:00] It’s time for our regular segment, Legally Speaking, joined as always by Barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defence Lawyers. Morning, Michael Mulligan, or afternoon I should say Michael Mulligan, a force of habit. How are you doing this week?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:11] Hey, good afternoon. I’m doing great. Always good to be here.

Adam Stirling [00:00:14] A really interesting story off the top today because it deals with a phenomenon that you and I have discussed any number of times during recent segments and that is the intersection that can happen with unlawful behaviour that is motivated by a person who may be suffering from some sort of psychiatric disorder and how the legal system deals with that in different situations. I am reading here, it says, driver who believed a motorcyclist was a demon liable for accident. What happened?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:41] Well, it’s a tragic case from 2018 in Vancouver and it’s particularly interesting because it deals with the issue of how severe mental illness or episode interfaces with civil liability rather than criminal liability.

Adam Stirling [00:00:58] mm hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:58] I mean we’ve talked about that in the criminal context, right, we don’t punish people if they’re not criminally responsible as a result of a mental disorder which involves an assessment of things including whether they’re able to you don’t understand the nature and quality of what they’re doing or what they’re going was wrong, right, as the criminal law is interested in punishing you know intentional wrongdoing, not you know accidents for people to think they’re fighting off demons.

Adam Stirling [00:01:24] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:01:24] Now as we talked about being found not criminally responsible does not mean when you go free.

Adam Stirling [00:01:28] no.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:01:29] Usually means you’re in the mental hospital in a secure facility until there’s a determination maybe you’re not a danger to the public, which could be for the rest of your life but that’s criminal. And what we’re dealing with here is civil back in the days before we had no fault and no one’s responsible for anything. The case involved a civil claim brought by a motorcycle rider who was intentionally run into on the Lionsgate bridge. It happened, as I said, in 2018, September, the motorcycle rider and a friend were out for a pleasant, uh, motorcycle ride in North Vancouver. They’re coming across the bridge, and very unfortunately for them, behind them with this fellow who had no previous history of any psychiatric issues at all, which was important to the case.  The fellow over a period of three days as a result it sounds like of sort of a combination of various stressors in a dangerous job, and finding out about the death of a neighbour, a workplace injury, lack of sleep, various things. He had this complete break with reality where he had these paranoid delusions eventually where he thought that there were demons that he needed to protect people from any thought these two people on two motorcycles were demons and so he decided to ram his Audi, not his Audi actualy,  that’s interesting too, it was his his ex-girlfriends Audi, now ex- girlfriend Audi,.

Adam Stirling [00:02:59] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:02:59] Into the back of one of them throwing one of the men off his motorcycle who skidding along the road it caused all kinds of, it caused various torn rotator cuffs and sprained wrist and ankle, described going along the sidewalk with belts flying off or sparks flying off of a metal thing on his belt. Awful.

Adam Stirling [00:03:18] wow.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:03:18] I must say, very fortunate it wasn’t worse.

Adam Stirling [00:03:21] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:03:21] But that fellow wound up making a civil claim suing both this man, the driver of the Audi and the owner of the Audi, the man’s then girlfriend and there’s provisions in the insurance motor vehicle act that make the owner of the vehicle libel when they allow other people to use it. Which is also important to know.

Adam Stirling [00:03:43] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:03:44] Now the claim involved claims for you know  non-pecuniary like pain and suffering but also for lost future earnings which is often a big thing the man was described as a voice actor who does animated productions commercials and video games, so you know maybe it’s the the Super Mario Brothers, who knows. But he alleged that his income went down as a result of the injuries that he suffered that night. Here’s why the, it’s really challenging problem to get your head around in terms of how does mental illness of this kind of a clear everyone agreed this manner it may have this breakdown he genuinely thought they were demons of flames coming up from under the bridge and he thought he was saving people.

Adam Stirling [00:04:25] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:04:25] You know earlier that day he found himself in the Ikea parking lot, in an Ikea parking lot with an impulse to go up and try to help people he thought were in danger. So clearly the man had this complete breakdown. But the reason it’s challenging from a civil liability perspective is while civil liability is not concerned with punishing people and wrongdoing, it’s concerned with compensation for loss. But on the basis of the civil claim, really there are two elements to it. One was a claim in what’s called negligence. And negligence involves there being a person who has a duty of care to somebody else, like when you’re driving your car, you’ve got a duty of care, to be careful, so you don’t run into people. Well, at least you did. And so there’s that. And then if you establish the duty of care, you have to show that the person was negligent or careless, right? The reason that it is challenging in this context is there are some circumstances in which, let’s say, a person with no prior histories driving along and they suffer an aneurysm, brain aneurism.

Adam Stirling [00:05:26] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:05:27] and they lose control, and they crash into somebody, injuring them. Well, there may be no negligence there, right, if a person had no reason to think they were going to have a brain aneurysm just suddenly just hit them, right and lost control, well they didn’t have any control over their actions. They weren’t like sort of careless leading up to it. Nothing, it just happened.

Adam Stirling [00:05:50] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:05:50] And similarly, the action was also framed in what’s called battery. And battery is kind of the civil cousin of the criminal idea of assaulting somebody. And here, that was framed that way as well, because the man, like, it wasn’t an accident, he intentionally drove his car into the motorcycle, thinking he was being driven by a demon. And so, then the issue there is, well, is that captured, right.

Adam Stirling [00:06:15] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:06:15] You know what degree of you know mental capacity do you have to have at the time for that as well so that’s what the judge was struggling with in this just fascinating case and if the judge points out the law about this is all over the map. the judge actually had to attach; this is interesting, she had to, they have to attach an appendix.

Adam Stirling [00:06:36] mm hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:06:37] Outlining all the different ways this has been dealt with a different common law jurisdictions different provinces in Canada and so, and some of the law is now quite old. And so the judge had to struggle with all of those concepts. Well, what do you do with this, right? And ultimately the approach the judge took to it is similar to an approach that can be taken in some cases involving things like heart attacks, where the heart attack causes the car accident,.

Adam Stirling [00:07:02] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:07:02] Because, and here’s the argument. The argument made was look, you know, clearly at the time the man had no capacity know that he had a duty of care to anyone, he was just kind of, right, in a completely different world. But the argument by the plaintiff was, well, you shouldn’t look at just like what happened in the hour or two before, or the few minutes before. And the analogy there would be, like, for example, with a heart attack because of the car accident, you know, if somebody’s driving along, no problem at all, and they just have a sudden massive heart attack, they lose control, they’re probably not negligent. But let’s on the other hand, you say to yourself, boy, you know, my chest really hurts. I’ve got a real pain there, boy, I think I’m in trouble. And you just say, well, I don’t really want to get an ambulance. I’ll just drive myself to the hospital. And then you, in fact, lose control of driving there. Well, at that very last moment, yeah, that might be out of your control and capacity, right, to do anything about. But the judge looked at here the fact that there were, this man had some idea that things were going wrong over the past couple of days, like the previous couple of day that he left work, thinking he couldn’t safely operate equipment. And he seemed to kind of degrade over a couple of days, eventually getting into this completely psychotic state.

Adam Stirling [00:08:17] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:08:17] And so the way the judge approached it, I think it’s a pretty good balancing, is the judge concluded, look, even though he may have not had any capacity to do anything or recognise the standard of care at the time when he was so deep into this psychosis that he thought there were demons on motorcycles. He wasn’t in that state for the whole period of time. He seemed to recognise that he had periods while his memory as to what was going on over the preceding two or three days was spotty. There was evidence from his girlfriend at the time that he seemed kind of lucid and fine on the phone, you know, that morning. But then, like shortly before he did this, he had stopped his car and phoned her and she was clearly very concerned that he you know, had lost touch with reality to the point where she phoned like 9-1-1 saying, Oh my God, and told them, don’t drive anywhere and phoned his brother to tell him, go try to stop your brother from doing anything. It didn’t work. He pulled out and went and did this.

Adam Stirling [00:09:11] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:09:11] But then, the idea of the liability here and the similar approach might be taken to somebody who drinks a whole lot of alcohol, right? The idea that, hey, you’re drinking and drinking, you getting really drunk. You’re getting really drunk and then you’re blackout drunk. And when you hop in your car and go and hit somebody.

Adam Stirling [00:09:26] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:09:27] The analysis made, well, I can appreciate at the time you just passed out in your car, but the analysis isn’t your obligation or your duty of care extends beyond that last moment when you passed out from all the alcohol you drank. And so that was the approach the judge applied here and found that even though at that last minute, in the last few minutes, he didn’t have that kind of capacity, there was still negligence, which is much lower, without punishing him. We’re just sorting out liability money, really. And so that was sufficient. Also, interestingly, the judge found that the ex-girlfriend is also liable, because it’s her vehicle, and she had allowed him to use the vehicle, even though she got this final phone call from him, told him, you know, oh my God, don’t drive, don’ t go anywhere, and phoned 911 and called his brother and tried to stop him from driving before this happened.

Adam Stirling [00:10:17] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:10:17] There’s a section of the insurance motor vehicle act, section 86, that when a person acquires a motor vehicle with consent of the owner and he had to let him use her Audi, you become libel for accidents that happen with it. so, even though she tried to do things to intervene, she’s also on the hook for it.

Adam Stirling [00:10:38] Wow.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:10:38] At the end of the day it’s a substantial judgement, the voice actor was seriously hurt he’d asked for one point four million he didn’t get that. but the award was for $429,000 and they’re gonna be some interesting insurance coverage issues here, because for example your ICBC coverage again, back at the time we were responsible for our actions, doesn’t cover somebody who engages in battery. You’re not insured for intentionally ramming somebody with your car, not surprisingly how do you ensure that. There’s going to be a really interesting issue here the claim was allowed on both that battery and negligence, no doubt negligence to be covered by the insurance,but It may be at the end of the day, this man who had the psychotic break, and interestingly, no issue since. He went to treatment, took medication, no problem for the past six years. This was a one-time thing by all accounts.

Adam Stirling [00:11:30] oh wow.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:11:31] He and his ex-girlfriend may wind up personally on the hook on the basis that the judge found there’s also liability in battery, which isn’t something covered by your insurance. So it’s a fascinating case, and that’s how sort of mental health and so on can interface not only criminal liability, but civil liability. And that was the latest from the BC Supreme Court, trying to sort out different laws all across the country and all around the world.

Adam Stirling [00:11:56] Michael Mulligan with Mulligan Defence Lawyers, Legally Speaking, will continue right after this.

[00:12:02] COMMERCIAL.

Adam Stirling [00:12:02] Legally Speaking continues on C-Fax 1070 with Michael Mulligen, Barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defence Lawyer. Michael, up next it says the misapplication of the step-up principle results in a reduced jail sentence for contempt of court, multiple times, and it’s a matter that we’ve been following for years now it feels like.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:12:20] That’s true. And so it’s one of the cases that comes out of those flying squirrel protests where there were a whole bunch of people convicted of criminal contempt, ultimately. And the case is notable for several reasons. It’s a court of appeal decision dealing with a sentence imposed on a woman, Ms. Davidson, who is a public figure in the sense that she is a deputy leader of the Green Party and a candidate in the upcoming federal election in the Northwest Territories. Ms. Davidson in this case had a trial and was ultimately convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt for breaching court orders, restricting the way in which people could protest to try to stop logging. And as the trial judge and the court of appeal point out here, criminal contempt is an offence that strikes at the heart of the rule of law. You know, you just can’t, you don’t have the rule of law. People just ignore laws that they don’t like, even if they feel strongly about it, which I must say is rather ironic that somebody convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt is running for election. You wonder why bother? If you’re interested in participating in making laws, if your position appears to be just ignore them if you don’t like them, that’s a rather incongruent proposition. So, it’s interesting of course that so far it is still having her continue in that role. Although I suppose it influenced by which of the fact that the one of the co-leaders of the Green Party local candidate here Ms. May, was also convicted of criminal contempt on another occasion. So maybe that tempers their view of it, but in any case. This woman’s convicted of the seven counts of criminal. tempt following a trial and the Crown and defence of different positions on sentencing at the time. The Crowns asking for anything fifty-one days plus a period of community work service and probation and defence counsel’s asking for time served woman spent twelve days in custody i guess waiting for, during your various arrests, i guess. The judge in the case interestingly imposes more than what the crown was asking for. Crown wanted 51 days, judge gives 60 days. The arguments on the appeal, there were several and I must say, the appeal was conducted on behalf of the woman by Mr. Issit, is that former city councillor here, is obviously doing a good job for his client lots of interesting legal arguments here. he made several arguments one of the arguments he made was that and there’s flows from a case Nahee, N-A-H-A N-E-E. It’s a case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which stands for the proposition that were a judge is going to impose more, like a longer sentence, on what the Crown is asking for.

Adam Stirling [00:15:04] mm hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:15:05] The judge is required to give counsel an opportunity to make further submissions about that, right? Okay, well, Crown asking for 51, I’m going to give 60, what do you say about that? Anything more I should take into account, right? So he made that argument. The Court of Appeal found that didn’t have any merit here because the judge made clear in his interaction with Crown including about that other concept that step-up principle that made clear that the judge had a concern that the sentence the crown was asking for is not sufficient so it wasn’t a circumstance where defence counsel didn’t have an opportunity to like provide more information that might explain why the sentence would be appropriate or the crown to provide more information about why they’re taking the position they did. That happened. The problem that was identified was an issue with how the judge applied that thing you mentioned the step-up principle. The step-up principle is the way it’s sometimes expressed, is sort of the idea that, you know, if you keep getting convicted of the same thing, your sentence is going to go up, which probably doesn’t need a principle to establish it. I’m sure anyone listening would think, yeah, that’s kind of how it works.

Adam Stirling [00:16:14] mm hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:16:14] You don’t usually get lesser and lesser sentences if you just keep doing the same thing.

Adam Stirling [00:16:18] Indeed.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:16:19] But the reason it was an issue here, the Court of Appeal identified, is how the judge expresses that in that discussion with the crown. Remember the crown says we say 51 days crowns says hold on a minute, You know is that really taking into account, you know the repeated activity here.  And the way the judge expressed it is a way that sometimes you do hear it expressed in court, But it’s not quite right, and what the judge express to crown was the idea that,  expressed it this way The judge said, surely she keeps going back, she keeps flaunting the orders of the court, she keeps disobeying them. Each time successively she does that, doesn’t the step-up principle oblige me? Doesn’t it oblige me? Doesn’t it suggest that for each successive breach I found, there has to be an increase in the sanction? That’s how the judge asked the question to the Crown.

Adam Stirling [00:17:12] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:17:12] And this is also an example of why it’s important that judges, you know, everything in court is recorded, public, right?

Adam Stirling [00:17:19] yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:17:19] And judges have to give reasons for what they’re doing so you can, like this, look at it afterwards and say, did they do it right. And that concept the Court of Appeal pointed out is the way the judge expressed it, the former now retired former chief judge or the chief justice of the province, was wrong. Uh, and the Court of Appeal pointed out, and there’s previous authority for this. Is that the concept the step-up principle does not require a judge to impose greater and greater sentences every time, they might do that they’re not obliged to. It’s not a requirement but as the Court of Appeal pointed out the step-up principle not only does it not require the judge to increase sentences for each count each time somebody does something, it in fact is a way to express the idea that there has to be a measured increase. Like, you know, each time it shouldn’t be, well, you know, last time a person got, you know two weeks for shoplifting, they shoplifted again, and the judge shouldn’t just say, okay, this time it’s gonna be three years in prison. The idea properly expressed would be a judge can, of course, take that into account and might impose a greater sentence, but there should be consideration given to the sentence that occurred on the last occasion and there should be some sort of moderation or measure in terms of how much you’re increasing it and so the court of appeals expressed, it’s not the obligation to make it more, it is a suggestion or requirement the judges moderate how much they’re jumping up each time.

Adam Stirling [00:18:53] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:18:53] Which is a very different thing.

Adam Stirling [00:18:54] Interesting.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:18:55] And so the Court of  Appeal found the judge was mistaken when he expressed that idea that he was obliged to impose more than the crown was asking for in the basis of that principle, the judge just didn’t properly understand that principle, which in fairness to the judge that’s a subtle difference, right? but it is a meaningful difference. And it’s another example of how there are all kinds of restraints on what a judge is allowed to do right?

Adam Stirling [00:19:20] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:19:21] Judges aren’t just unfettered, kind of going off you know, imposing whatever sentence they kind of feel like that day.

Adam Stirling [00:19:27] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:19:27] This is an example of one of the kinds of legal constraints because you know it’s not an emotional process; it’s supposed to be a process of reason and logic and consistency and so on.

Adam Stirling [00:19:37] Yes.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:19:37] The other thing that’s worth pointing out, and some people may not be aware of this, is that we mentioned that idea about giving the lawyers a chance to respond or give additional information if the judges can do more than what one of them is asking for. That seems fair. But the other thing people should know about is there’s another Supreme Court of Canada case, Anthony Cook, that actually restricts a judge’s ability to depart when there’s an agreement between the two lawyers. Like if the defence and make an agreement and say, look, okay, my client will plead guilty to criminal contempt if you, Crown, would agree to ask for, let’s say, 45 days and I’ll agree to the same thing, right, like a deal. When that happens, and it’s made clear to the judge that this is a joint submission, both lawyers have agreed and that’s the basis upon which the person pled guilty.

Adam Stirling [00:20:23] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:20:24] In that case, a judge has very little discretion to depart from it. They can only be departing from what both lawyers are asking them to do, if imposing what’s being asked for, there would bring the administration of justice into distribute. Like it’s completely inappropriate you know if people looking at that would be well that’s just outrageous. I’m not doing that. Then they can depart from that. But short of that very high bar, a judge must do what they’re being told to do, they can’t monkey with it.

Adam Stirling [00:20:50] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:20:50] the reason for the law being that way is that otherwise no case would resolve like everything would just go to trial, if it was just a topsy-turvy world where judges could do whatever they felt like, regardless of whether there was an agreement or not, you would not have cases resolving, and most criminal cases result by a guilty plea, and that’s one of the reasons why.

Adam Stirling [00:21:11] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:21:11] So that’s another example of how judges can’t just do whatever they want. In some cases, the lawyers have much more control over the sentence than the judge would. Now, this was a case where there wasn’t a joint submission, so the judge did of authority to depart from it, didn’t breach that obligation to gave each side a chance to say more, because it made clear there was a problem, but made a mistake in terms of how he did it. The net result? The sentence originally imposed was 60 days, reduced by 12 for the time already spent in jail, and the Court of Appeal reduced that to 51 days, what the Crown had originally asked for.

Adam Stirling [00:21:42] All right.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:21:43] And so found that she’ll need to serve 39 more days, also interestingly said she’ll have to start serving that on April the 24th. which will be just before the upcoming federal election. So I guess if she wants to vote for herself, she’ll need to do that in an advanced poll. Also interestingly, she was given some time to start serving it. Often with these appeals, a person has to turn themselves in before the appeal is heard and then would continue serving it if the jail sentence continues. So that’s the latest from Ms. Davison, the sentence appeal, and the step-up principle.

Adam Stirling [00:22:11] All right, and I believe her counsel issued a press release either yesterday or the day before saying that they intend to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada and were hopeful to get bail as early as today.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:22:20] Well you can always ask, but you don’t get to go to the Supreme Court of Canada because you’re keen. You have to ask permission.

[00:22:26] All right, we’ll watch that with great interest. Michael Mulligan, pleasure as always. Thanks so much.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:22:29] Thanks so much, always great to be here.

Adam Stirling [00:22:30] All right Legally Speaking during the second half of our second hour every Thursday on CFax 1070.

Automatically Transcribed on April 11, 2024 – MULLIGAN DEFENCE LAWYERS