Five months after she lost a lengthy legal battle with the Canadian government and the entire flock of her farm’s ostriches were culled, the woman behind the controversy sat in a Vernon courtroom Tuesday embroiled in a different legal battle, this time against her sister.

Universal Ostrich Farm co-owner Karen Espersen is suing her sister, Catherine Quigley, over a 50-acre plot of land across the road from the ostrich farm, where they had all hoped to one day live in harmony.

“We were going to be one big happy family together,” Espersen told the court April 14, on the first day of an eight-day civil trial.

It didn’t work out like that, and in 2021 Espersen began legal proceedings against her sister and brother-in-law, Owen Quigley, accusing them of reneging on a property deal that dated back almost 15 years.

Espersen testified that she and her husband Erik had been living on the 50-acre parcel of land across the road from the Universal Ostrich Farm since buying it in 2001.

By 2013, they were facing foreclosure after Erik had an accident at work and was out of action for a few years.

They owed the bank $380,000.

“That’s when Owen (Quigley) had approached me and offered to put it into their name,” Espersen told the court. “I thought he was doing something very commendable. He was trying to keep all the sisters together.”

An arrangement was drawn up whereby the Quigleys would take over the mortgage and have the property transferred to them.

Espersen said transferring the property into her sister’s name was “temporarily” and done “in trust.”

The Quigleys don’t see it like that.

In court documents, the Quigleys say the land was supposed to be subdivided, and the Espersen’s would then purchase the subdivided part back from them.

It is unclear when the relationship between the sisters broke down, but in 2023 Owen assaulted one of the Espersens with a skid steer and was later convicted after pleading guilty in court. He was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay $100.

Sitting next to Espersen in the courtroom was her business partner and Universal Ostrich Farm co-owner Dave Bilinski, who is also involved in the case.

Bilinski has lived on the property in a manufactured home since 2015, and court documents say he has never paid rent. The Quigleys are countersuing Bilinski and his wife, Lorraine, over the issue.

While the paperwork for the court case was filed years ago, the trial started just days after the CBC aired its Fifth Estate documentary, “The Ostrich Con.”

The investigation revealed that the Universal Ostrich Farms owners had exaggerated and made false claims about their birds, the business and the scientific findings.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen called their claims groundbreaking research “a scam.”

Asked by iNFOnews.ca outside the courtroom what Bilinski thought of the documentary, he said it was “very one-sided.”

Bilinski said the CBC got many things wrong, but didn’t say what those things were after being asked several times.

In the last few years, the farm creditors have sued the business for more than $250,000.

While the farm’s public crowdfunding sites brought in more than $330,000, Bilinski said his creditors hadn’t been paid back, saying the money was spent on legal fees and farm costs.

The civil case over the property is scheduled to continue for another seven days. None of those allegations has been proven in court.