Can a lawyer file for a divorce 14 years after finalizing the divorce in an other country?

Question

I am a Canadian, living in California, divorced my ex-husband in 2003. According to the settlement signed in California, the family home in Canada was transferred to me. At the time of divorce his employer filed an embezzlement case against him and therefore, my ex did not contest the divorce, nor did he want a share of the property. There is a loan he borrowed without my knowledge and the court ordered my ex to pay that loan. He did make some payments and then stopped. I had no choice but take over payments to avoid foreclosure. I then went to family maintenance to collect child & spousal support payment. My ex did not want to make any payments, and filed for a divorce in 2015 in Canada. He also placed liens on my property without revealing to the city that he was ordered by the court to make those loan payments. I obtained another order from family court in California to enforce the 2003 judgement. Can a Canadian court disregard the CA order, when they have no jurisdiction in the case? Is there any legal basis for an attorney to bring such a case in Canada? Is she not legally accountable for bringing such a case to court? I am not a lawyer, but I see no legal ground for a lawyer to bring such a case agains me. It was a huge financial hardship, to hire a lawyer in Canada, to travel so often, not to mention the mental agony I suffered. I sent my ex's lawyer the recent court order; still she hasn't withdrawn the cases she filed on behalf of my ex.

Answer 1

This is very, very weird. I've never heard of a case like this one. Is there some context that could explain why anyone would refile a divorce someplace new twelve years after getting divorced the first time around?

The logical thing to do if Canadian civil procedure is at all analogous to U.S. civil procedure on this point, would be to have a Canadian lawyer file a motion in the Canadian divorce case to set aside the judgment on the extraordinary grounds that you were not married any longer at the time that the 2015 divorce was filed, seeking to set aside the 2015 case ruling.

In most U.S. jurisdictions with civil procedural rules modeled on the federal rules of civil procedure (California's are not), this would be a motion under Rule of Civil Procedure 60, but obviously, the Canadian rule numbering would probably be different.

Alternatively, if the home is in California, you could bring an action for declaratory judgment declaring that the Canadian judgment is invalid because it was brought in a divorce action between people who were already divorced and probably also lacked jurisdiction over you and the property.

I'm not sure what you mean by CPL in this context. Normally, in a real estate context, a CPL would mean a "closing protection letter", but in the context you are using it, it sounds like you are referring to something akin to a lis pendens or a lien. Perhaps you mean a "certificate of pending litigation" which is another name of a lis pendens in at least some Canadian jurisdictions (but is terminology rarely used in the U.S.).

This sounds like slander of title, or "abuse of process" or the filing of what is known as a spurious lien, any of which are actionable, but without knowing what a CPL actually is, it is hard to know.