B.C. judge slams women who sued each other over failed Airbnb business

The two properties involved in the dispute are seen in these images from the BC Assessment website. The Vernon property is at the top and the Kelowna property is below. (bcassessment.ca)

A “vicious and prolonged litigation” between two women who operated a pair of short-term rental properties in B.C.’s Okanagan together has ended with a net award of just $724.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice David A. Crerar issued his decision in the case last week, dedicating several paragraphs of the decision to chastising the parties for their pettiness and animosity.

“The parties’ hatred of each other has been evident in their actions and their communications since August 2022: it simmered just below the surface throughout trial and often erupted in overt displays of spite,” Crerar’s decision reads, in a section discussing the credibility of the women’s testimony.

“That hatred, combined with their desperate self-interest, and their pervasive sense of moral outrage and self-pity, has obliterated any sense of objectivity and balance, and rendered it difficult to believe anything that either party said.”

At its core, the dispute was over who owned the two homes—one in Kelowna and one in Vernon—that the women entered a business partnership to run as short-term rentals listed on Airbnb.

The plaintiff, Jennifer Shannon Schwitzer, sued Jillian Irene Little and Little J Vacations Inc., asking the court to declare that she was a co-owner of the two properties or, alternatively, that she was entitled to a return of funds and compensation for labour she provided toward the business venture.

Key events in the dispute

Schwitzer and Little didn’t always hate each other, according to the decision. They met in 2016, when Schwitzer was a Realtor in Kelowna and Little was a CIBC mortgage advisor based in Red Deer, Alta.

In September 2020, Little mentioned to Schwitzer that she planned to purchase a home in Kelowna to rent on Airbnb, and Schwitzer replied that she was looking to do the same thing. The decision indicates the women went into business together, with Little providing the funds to purchase the two properties and Schwitzer serving as “boots on the ground” to manage the rentals.

The Kelowna property was located on Breeze Place and the Vernon property on Longacre Place. Crerar’s decision refers to the properties as “Breeze” and “Longacre,” respectively.

In April 2021, shortly after the properties were purchased—with Little’s name on the title to both of them—Schwitzer deposited $60,000 into a joint bank account and the parties signed an agreement describing the contribution as a “shareholder loan” Schwitzer was making to their business venture, according to the decision.

This “April agreement” noted that if the parties could not come to some future agreement about the real estate in question, the $60,000 should be returned within 60 days upon Schwitzer’s written request.

Though the plaintiff argued in court that an agreement giving her equity in the properties had been established, the defendant argued no such agreement had been reached.

Crerar sided with Little on this question. Indeed, the judge’s decision points to the parties’ inability to reach an agreement on Schwitzer’s ownership stake as the primary reason their relationship soured in the summer of 2022.

“Throughout August they discussed and negotiated various scenarios moving forward, including a wind-up of the business, with increasing acrimony, vitriol, and distrust,” the decision reads.

While this fight was ongoing, Schwitzer withdrew a total of $11,854 from the joint account, across four different transactions. While the plaintiff claimed this was a reimbursement of property-related expenses she had paid, Little accused her of theft.

“On Aug. 19, 2022, the defendant changed the locks at Breeze,” the decision reads, summarizing the month’s events.

“The next day, the RCMP arrested the plaintiff, on the defendant’s complaint that she had entered the property without authorization and had stolen money; the defendant filed a similar police report against the defendant with respect to the Longacre property. The plaintiff herself changed the locks, and herself filed a police complaint, as well as a Residential Tenancy Branch complaint against the defendant, claiming a contractual right to live in Breeze.”

Schwitzer filed her lawsuit in September 2022, and filed certificates of pending litigation (CPLs) against both properties, which the court later removed in February 2024.

The day after the CPLs were lifted, Schwitzer’s best friend and “sometime housemate” filed a complaint about Little with her employer, CIBC. Schwitzer also made “a series of complaints” with CIBC against Little, according to the decision.

Little was fired by CIBC in June 2024, and the decision indicates she is currently suing the bank for wrongful dismissal.

Claim and counterclaim

Crerar concluded that Schwitzer’s claim to equity in the two properties was defeated by the April agreement.

“It specifically contemplated the condition precedent of a formal written agreement,” the decision reads. “Apart from that agreement, the parties had not yet agreed on essential terms for the business relationship and property ownership. Even if one places weight on the passing references to ‘equity’ and ‘partnership,’ which I do not, at best the parties reached an unenforceable agreement to agree.”

The judge still awarded Schwitzer more than $100,000, however, under the terms of the April agreement.

The bulk of that total, some $92,090, was the return of amounts she contributed to the project, either directly through cash contributions or indirectly through payments she made to contractors who worked on the properties.

Crerar also awarded Schwitzer $38,431 as “quantum meruit,” essentially compensation for her work as a property manager.

The total award to the plaintiff was $130,521, but it was offset by significant amounts Crerar awarded to the defendant for her counterclaim.

Little’s counterclaim sought compensation for various expenses she incurred travelling to and from Kelowna to check on the properties and ensure that Schwitzer had not attempted to change the locks again or otherwise interfere with them.

“Given their acrimonious rupture, the involvement of police, and the plaintiff’s unauthorised changing of the locks and attempts to enter the properties, these fears and costs were justified,” the decision reads, awarding the $14,245 Little sought.

Crerar also awarded $4,400 to Little for utilities and other expenses Schwitzer owed from the time she spent living in the Breeze property.

The bulk of the counterclaim was for defamation, specifically regarding the complaint to CIBC made by Schwitzer’s friend and housemate Mark Cluff.

Crerar’s decision notes that Little’s counterclaim did not involve the complaints Schwitzer made directly to CIBC, nor did she sue Cluff directly for his complaint in the counterclaim.

“She is pursuing both of those claims in a separate proceeding,” the decision reads.

The counterclaim dealt only with Schwitzer’s liability for Cluff’s complaint to CIBC, which the judge found was defamatory, since both Schwitzer and Cluff had “considerable real estate experience” and would have known that Little had not acted as—or held herself out as—a mortgage broker in B.C., which is what Cluff’s complaint alleged.

While Cluff and Schwitzer each denied that he made the complaint at her urging, Crerar found that these denials were not credible. The judge found that Schwitzer made her complaints—and encouraged or directed Cluff to make his—out of malice toward Little, rather than any genuine concern about the mortgage that Little had helped Cluff acquire two years earlier.

“The plaintiff has made it her life work to destroy the defendant and make her regret not acceding to her demands for equity ownership,” the decision reads, when discussing Schwitzer’s credibility.

Crerar awarded Little $60,000 in general damages for the defamation, plus another $50,000 in punitive damages.

In all, when Little’s damages were offset against the amount awarded to Schwitzer, the defendant was ordered to pay just $724 to the plaintiff.

‘Vengeful airings of every petty grievance’

Crerar’s decision concludes with some final notes of warning and admonition to the parties.

“I understand from passing trial comments that each party has filed or is contemplating filing new actions based on defamation and otherwise against the other,” the decision reads. “While they are free to pursue those claims, and stretch their litigation into its fourth, fifth, and possibly sixth year, I would urge the parties to reflect on the stress and cost this litigation has inflicted on themselves and their families, and move on with their lives.”

Crerar warns the women that future lawsuits—if they duplicate claims already made in previous cases—could be struck as abuses of process, and adds that either woman could potentially be labelled a vexatious litigant if she persists in arguing her case in the manner that occurred before him.

According to the decision, the plaintiff made 212 filings in the case, including 50 affidavits, while the defendant made 107 filings, including 25 affidavits. Their applications led to 46 court orders and took 85 hours of court time.

The judge notes that the proceeding consumed a “grossly disproportionate” amount of time, relative to the amounts of money involved.

“The present, purely private dispute arose from a profit-seeking venture based on properties worth some $2 million, between litigants who owned at least two (the plaintiff) and nine (the defendant) other investment properties at the relevant time,” the decision reads.

“Parties entering into such transactions should set aside a provisional fund for trial counsel in case their venture goes awry, particularly if it does so through their own lack of business acumen, care in documentation, and civility. Instead, these parties ask taxpayers and other litigants to subsidize their vengeful airings of every petty grievance in proceedings protracted through their self-representation.”