The Sudbury couple at the centre of a longstanding property dispute with Laurentian University will be required to deactivate their website, remove advertising from public benches and stop selling mugs featuring photos of former LU president Robert Haché.
Laurentian University, in turn, is selling the small piece of university property at the heart of the dispute to the couple in question, Dominique Ansell and James Crispo, for $20,000.
That’s according to court documents made public this week which reveal details of Laurentian University’s settlement of the dispute.
A court hearing has been set for Jan. 25 to tie up final loose ends and make the settlement official.
The property dispute involves encroachment onto university land at 2115 South Bay Rd.
The owners of the South Bay Road property, Ansell and Crispo, have been trying to have the issue resolved for years, and even have a website called Laurentian.org dedicated to the property matter, along with news related to Laurentian’s insolvency.
The website said that after purchasing their home in 2016, the couple learned their backyard (landscaping, maintenance building, and septic system) encroached on Laurentian property.
Laurentian then asked them to make a reasonable offer to purchase the encroached lands, and the couple did so, but their offer was rejected, according to the website. The couple said they then proposed a property exchange, but this was rejected as well.
In 2019, Laurentian sued the couple over the issue, and they responded with a counterclaim.
Last year, Ansell and Crispo listed their two-bedroom property for sale at the high price of $9.35 million. The ad contains the following tongue-in-cheek statement: “Since 2016, the Laurentian University Board of Governors has taken a special interest in this picturesque 1.2-acre property. Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime investment opportunity!”
Minutes of an Aug. 15, 2022 in-camera Laurentian board of governors meeting show the board passed a motion authorizing the university to act upon a settlement with the property owners.
After Sudbury.com learned of the settlement in October, we reached out to the property owners, but received only this short emailed response from Crispo: “Thank you for your email. The property matter is no longer an issue, and we are unable to comment on particulars of this litigation. As Laurentian University alumni, we support the university and look forward to the opportunity to work with the university community in the future.”
Lawyers for Ansell and Crispo and Laurentian University will appear before a judge Jan. 25 to seek a “vesting order” which would allow the transfer of the title of the property at issue to the couple.
The court documents said the settlement offer was made by Laurentian on July 11, and accepted by Ansell and Crispo.
It provides for the transfer of the subject property in exchange for a $20,000 cash payment, the litigation action “being dismissed on a with-prejudice and without-costs basis on consent of both parties,” as well as the ceasing of Ansell and Crispo’s publicity campaign.
The settlement agreement was subject to obtaining the aforementioned vesting order to affect a transfer of the subject property and a severance of the subject property from the university property by court order.
The order was to be sought from the court overseeing Laurentian’s insolvency restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, or CCAA. Laurentian finally exited the CCAA late last year.
The settlement agreement required all conditions to be satisfied or waived by Nov. 15, except with consent of the parties. The parties agreed to extend this date to Jan. 30.
The court documents say the $20,000 payment from Ansell and Crispo has been made, in trust, to the university’s lawyers in the litigation action.
“All conditions to implementation of the Settlement Agreement have either been satisfied or waived by the university, other than obtaining the vesting order sought herein, and the parties are ready to complete the settlement agreement,” say the court documents.
The documents filed before the courts also include a copy of Laurentian’s July 11 settlement offer to Ansell and Crispo. It contains an exhaustive list of requirements related to the ceasing of their publicity campaign about the university.
For example, upon acceptance of LU’s offer, it says “the defendants shall forever refrain from making any disparaging, critical, and/or other negative comments or complaints, orally or in writing” regarding Laurentian.
That includes “any and all of its current and former board of governors, officers and directors, management, employees, counsel and advisors, students” where such “comments relate in any way to the property, the matters raised in this litigation, the plaintiff’s ongoing proceeding pursuant to the CCAA, or any other events or circumstances existing as of the date of this offer.”
The settlement said during the conditional period of the offer, Ansell and Crispo are not to publish any new information on their website, Laurentian.org.
Within five days of the granting of the vesting order finalizing the transfer of the property, the couple are to deactivate the website “such that it is not longer visible to the public, and initiate the permanent transfer of ownership of the domain name www.laurentian.org, including all rights related thereto, to the Plaintiff (meaning Laurentian University), at no cost to the Plaintiff.”
The couple’s Laurentian.org website was still publicly visible as of this article’s publication.
Also within five days of the granting of the vesting order, Ansell and Crispo are to remove their advertisements on public benches. It appears that these benches, which pointed people to the Laurentian.org website, have already been removed from several locations in the South End ahead of next week’s court appearance.
Under the settlement, the couple are also to cease the sale or distribution of mugs with the image of former Laurentian president Robert Haché, or any other personnel (although they’re able to fulfill orders made prior to their acceptance of the settlement offer).
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
