Judge berates Kelowna realtor in bitter court battle with business partner

A BC judge had scathing words for a Kelowna realtor and her former business partner after their venture into real estate to Airbnb led to arrests, defamation, firings and a lengthy, bitter court battle.

In a Dec. 18 BC Supreme Court decision, Justice David Crerar said it was clear that Kelowna realtor Jennifer Shannon Schwitzer had made it her life’s work to destroy her former business partner, Jillian Irene Little, and criticized both women for their “vengeful airings” of petty grievances, saying their hatred of each other erupted in overt displays of spite.

“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,” Justice Crerar said in the decision.

The case dates back to 2016 when the Schwitzer met Little, who at the time lived in Red Deer, Alberta and worked as an ICBC mortgage advisor. 

Four years later, in 2020, Little mentioned a plan to buy some Kelowna real estate and put it on Airbnb as a vacation property.

Schwitzer said she’d been thinking of doing the same thing.

The two went into business together and set up Little J Vacations buying a property in Kelowna on Breeze Place, for just over $1-million and a property on Longacre Place in Vernon for $911,000.

However, Schwitzer didn’t have the money as she couldn’t sell two Alberta rentals she owned and Little paid for the down payments, saying she put in $180,000.

The arrangement was that Schwitzer would be the “boots on the ground” and manage the day-to-day rentals. She also put in $60,000.

In April 2021, they drafted a business agreement, which they both signed.

“Despite their initial enthusiasm and some successes, the enterprise suffered from cash flow difficulties; it faced a further hurdle in Kelowna municipal restrictions on short-term Airbnb and other rentals unless the owner resided on site for most of the year,” the Justice said.

It didn’t take long and by the summer of 2022, the relationship had soured and then “exploded.”

“(Schwitzer) began expressing frustration that no formal agreement had yet been reached. (Little) in turn was frustrated with aspects of the (Schwitzer’s) management of the properties,” the Justice said.

In June that year, the two made an agreement while on Kin Beach in Vernon and negotiated moving forward with increased “acrimony, vitriol, and distrust.”

A few months later Schwitzer withdrew $11,854 in four transactions from their joint account, and Little changed the locks on the Kelowna property.

“The next day, the RCMP arrested (Schwitzer), on (Little’s) complaint that she had entered the property without authorization and had stolen money,” the decision reads. 

In turn, Schwitzer then changed the locks and filed a police complaint against Little.

In September 2022, Schwitzer sued Little over their contract, and in turn Little countersued for defamation.

Schwitzer had certificates of pending litigation placed on the properties, which were eventually lifted by court order two years later.

A day after the certificates of pending litigation were removed, Schwitzer’s best friend, Mark Cluff, complained to Little’s employer, CIBC, about her role in getting him a private mortgage. 

A few months later Little was fired by CIBC.

“These events further set the table for the toxic tone of this litigation, continuing throughout trial,” the justice said.

In her court filing, Schwitzer demanded ownership of the Vernon property and proceeds from the sale of the Kelowna home, which had been sold.

The two women, both representing themselves, argued their case over a three-week trial. 

And Justice Crerar wasn’t impressed with either of them.

“None of the key witnesses were reliable or credible,” the Justice said, calling their testimony “self-serving.”

“(Schwitzer) was argumentative and evasive throughout her testimony. She exhibited limited recall, except with respect to events and conversations that assisted her case. When pressed on difficult aspects of her case, (she) often claimed not to remember details,” Justice Crerar said.

“(Little) sabotaged her own credibility with late document disclosure and failure to disclose documents, even in the face of multiple court orders before and during trial,” the Justice said, adding that she’d failed to comply with multiple court orders.

The Justice goes into great detail over various contracts the two had, and ultimatley, ruled that Schwitzer wasn’t owed any real estate. The Justice did conclude she was owed $38,431 for some of the work she’d done, although not the $127,000 that she wanted.

The Justice also dismissed her claims for wrongful arrest saying there were reasonable grounds that she’d entered the properties without authorization.

Little’s counterclaim for defamation stems from a Facebook post Schwitzer wrote.

“I can’t wait to write a book about the current evil I’m encountering with a previous business partner. Pure monster,” the post read.

The post didn’t name Little, and at trial Schwitzer argued the post was about a different previous business partner.

However, the justice pointed out she hadn’t written it in the past tense and that her testimony “beggars belief.”

“Her post clearly referred to (Little). (Schwitzer’s) denial under oath was blatantly dishonest,” the Justice said.

Justice Crerar awarded Little $60,000 for the defamation.

While Little argued she was fired because of the complaint Schwitzer made to CIBC, the Justice ruled there was more to it than that.

The two were involved in a social media war and Little had posted toxic statements about Schwitzer.

“(Little) candidly acknowledges that this social media war, coupled with the spillover from the litigation itself, all constituted reputational risk to CIBC, and was cited as another reason for the termination,” the decision reads. 

The justice said that while there were multiple reasons Little got fired, the complaint against her from Schwitzer’s friend contributed to it.

I am satisfied that the Cluff complaint, orchestrated by (Schwitzer), was designed and directed to inflict maximum reputational harm on (Little), and to threaten her employment, for the purpose of imposing litigation pressure and vengeance,” the Justice said.

On top of the $60,000 award for defamation, the Justice awarded a futher $50,000 in punitive damages saying Schwitzer was motivated by “actual malice.”

Ultimately, after parsing through all the evidence, the Justice decided Little owed Schwitzer $130,521, but Schwitzer owed Little, $129,797.

It left Little to pay her former business partner $724.

The Justice also had words for them as they carry on separate suits against each other.

“This proceeding consumed a grossly disproportionate amount of court time: a scarce public resource, as the parties well know various applications, and a scheduled trial, were bumped due to total hearings exceeding available judges… 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 (Schwitzer) and nine (Little) other investment properties at the relevant time. 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,” the Justice said. “Instead, these parties ask taxpayers and other litigants to subsidise their vengeful airings of every petty grievance in proceedings protracted through their self-representation.”

The Justice then encourages them to “move on with their lives.”