Vexatious litigant prevented from acting in bunion and rash case
On April 18, 2019, Julia Zhu filed a lawsuit against a general practitioner and a dermatologist over a condition called extramammary Paget’s disease, which is a chronic eczema-like rash on the skin around the genital area. Zhu also complained about the treatment of her bunions.
In October 2023, Judge Richard Weinstein ordered that Zhu be appointed a tutor because he was unable to manage his affairs. Initially, his son Norman Zhou was appointed, but resigned because he was living in Shanghai.
In August 2025, Bar-Mordecai, who had accompanied Zhu to some of his medical appointments, applied to be appointed as Zhu’s teacher on the grounds that, as a former practitioner, he “had expertise and insight into the subject matter of the trial.”
Judge Peter Garling said: “I am satisfied that Mr Bar-Mordecai was dishonest in his application for appointment as a teacher.” Credit: Nick Gibson
Bar-Mordecai also said that the 2004 Court of Appeal decision “ultimately ruled in my favor, my de facto marriage was recognized and the previous decisions were overturned.”
Judge Peter Garling said this claim was “wholly misleading” and dishonest.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said the judge, who said Bar-Mordecai’s case in the previous case was hopeless and unsuccessful.
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Garling continued by citing some of the earlier findings against Bar-Mordecai. Judge John Bryson said: “Some of his allegations appear to be fantasies from Baron Munchausen’s travels.” Bryson also said that he did not believe that Bar-Mordecai “was actually a person whom fate and evil had subjected to a surprising number of unexpected circumstances, lies, and hostility.”
In the current court hearings, Zhu’s son was acting as his mother’s tutor when documents were sent to the defendants making wild accusations, including that medical records were falsified and that a medical professional “knowingly relied on false instructions to prepare a fabricated peer review report.”
The defendant’s attorney was accused of “concealing negligence, misleading the judiciary, and being part of a broader conspiracy to defend the plaintiff’s claim through deception and abuse of the court process.”
Norman Zhou told the defendants that he did not write or send these documents. Instead, they were sent from the email address of a person using the handle “Associate with Mr. Zhou.”
Garling said the “exaggeratedly worded allegations of fraud, conspiracy, deception and criminality” made against the doctors, their lawyers and a medical expert were very similar to the language Bar-Mordecai had previously used in unsuccessful court cases.
The judge concluded that the dismissed GP “had not been honest in his application for appointment as a teacher”.
“The fact that Mr. Bar-Mordecai has been the subject of a vexatious judgment that has been maintained for 20 years, expanded and diversified during that time, is, in itself and without anything more, a very good reason why he should not be appointed as conservator to conduct any proceedings,” Garling said.
The plaintiff was ordered to pay costs and the matter was reinstated for a status hearing on December 10.
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