We like to believe that contempt of court is simple: you break the rules, face the consequences, and if you comply, you earn your way back out. The law, we tell ourselves, is precise, structured, and fair.
But what happens when the very order meant to restore accountability becomes the trap itself?
This case, Chiang (Trustee of) v. Chiang, forces us to confront a deeply uncomfortable reality: that even systems designed to enforce justice can spiral into something coercive, endless, and structurally impossible to escape.
What began as a routine commercial debt dispute in California evolved into one of the most complex and punishing contempt proceedings in Canadian legal history.
A family chased across borders. A consent order that functioned more like a contract with no exit. A process where the “keys to the cell” were no longer in the hands of the people being punished, but in the hands of their creditors. A use of contempt that was alarming and structurally unsound. And a long odyssey of litigation that took over eight years to resolve.
At the center of this story is a haunting paradox. The court wanted answers, but the mechanism it created to extract those answers required cooperation from third parties in another jurisdiction. The result was a legal maze where effort was never enough, compliance was never complete, and the definition of “purging contempt” remained perpetually out of reach.
The result was a system that punished without a clear path to redemption, where time, effort, and even compliance could not guarantee release. The lesson for litigators is that precision is not a technical detail; it is a safeguard against harm.
To unpack how this happened (and why it still matters), I sat down with Tom Curry, a veteran litigation lawyer in Toronto who was brought into the case at its darkest point.
Together, we explored how a single consent order reshaped the trajectory of an entire family’s life, why the Court of Appeal eventually intervened, and what this case teaches us about power, perseverance, and the limits of coercive justice.
You’ll also learn:
- How a routine business dispute turned into a decade-long legal odyssey
- How a consent order became the most powerful lever in the case
- What happens when the keys to freedom are held by creditor/plaintiff instead of the contemnor
- Why “best efforts” can become an impossible legal standard
- How coercive sentences cross the line into punishment
- What this case reveals about power, persistence, and human resilience
- Why structure, not pressure, is the real engine of accountability
Guest Bio
Tom Curry is a litigation lawyer in Toronto, a partner at Lenczner Slaght, and a speaker. He is recognized as one of the most experienced trial and appellate advocates of his generation in Canada. Tom has a long record of success in high-profile commercial litigation, class actions, arbitrations, business disputes, administrative law, judicial review, intellectual property, competition, and professional liability cases. Tom is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and is certified as a specialist in civil litigation by the Law Society of Ontario. He is a regular speaker on a wide variety of subjects relating to trial practice and substantive law. He has been recognized with the prestigious Law Society Medal, the Catzman Award, the Advocates’ Society Award for Excellence in Teaching, and, most recently, the OBA Award for Excellence in Civil Litigation. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
About Your Host
Areta Lloyd practices estate and trusts litigation, with a particular focus on capacity litigation. She participates in public speaking, mentoring junior lawyers, and presenting courses on estates law, health law, and law practice management. Areta has written for several publications and wrote a column for the Alzheimer caregiver website ALZlive.com.
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