Vancouver, B.C. – The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered Miroslaw Moscipan to personally share the financial burden of the University of British Columbia’s legal fees in a protracted legal battle over a large scale fraud committed by his late wife, a former university employee. The decision, cited as University of British Columbia v Moscipan, 2025 BCSC 1524 (CanLII), delivered on August 8, 2025, by Justice M. Taylor, concluded a significant chapter in a case that involved theft, a fraudulently transferred family home, and a failed attempt by Mr. Moscipan to limit his financial liability. The ruling ensures that UBC can recover its costs not only from the empty estate of the deceased fraudster but also from her husband, who was found to have knowingly received stolen funds and participated in a property transfer designed to frustrate creditors.
The legal costs dispute stemmed from an earlier, decisive victory for UBC on February 23, 2024. In that summary trial judgment, Justice Taylor found the estate of Wanda Barbara Moscipan, a former UBC employee, liable for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the university. The court ordered her estate to pay UBC two separate amounts totaling approximately $651,117, plus more than $175,000 in interest. The judgment also found that Miroslaw Moscipan had personally been a “knowing recipient” of some of the stolen money and ordered him to repay $15,073.55 plus interest. Critically, the court also voided a March 2011 transfer of the couple’s North Vancouver home, located on Tennyson Crescent, from Ms. Moscipan to the two of them as joint tenants. This declaration of a fraudulent conveyance was pivotal, as it allowed UBC to pursue the value of the home to satisfy the massive judgment against Ms. Moscipan’s estate, which otherwise held no significant assets.
Following this comprehensive win, UBC sought to have its legal costs for the proceeding paid by both the estate and Mr. Moscipan personally, on a joint and several basis. While Mr. Moscipan did not object to the estate being liable for costs, he vigorously opposed being held personally responsible. His argument rested on an offer to settle that he had made to the university more than a year before the trial, on January 6, 2023. In that offer, Mr. Moscipan proposed to resolve the claims against him personally by paying the $15,073.55 plus interest and costs up to the date of the offer. He argued that since the court ultimately ordered him to pay this exact amount, UBC had acted unreasonably by refusing his offer and should therefore be barred from recovering any legal costs incurred against him after that date. He further contended that UBC, with its “vast financial resources,” had chosen to prolong the litigation to exert financial pressure on him.
UBC countered that Mr. Moscipan’s argument presented a misleadingly simple picture of the litigation. The university’s lawyers emphasized that there were two distinct and crucial claims being advanced against Mr. Moscipan personally. The first was the monetary claim for knowing receipt of stolen funds, which the settlement offer addressed. The second, and far more significant, claim was for a declaration that the Tennyson Property had been fraudulently conveyed to shield it from creditors. UBC argued that Mr. Moscipan’s offer completely ignored this vital second claim. The university stressed that because Ms. Moscipan’s estate was essentially insolvent, the ability to execute the judgment against the valuable North Vancouver home was not just important, it was fundamental to recovering any of the stolen funds. Accepting Mr. Moscipan’s partial offer would have settled the minor monetary claim while forcing UBC to abandon its only path to meaningful recovery on the much larger debt, effectively leaving the university with an unenforceable or “dry” judgment.
In his detailed analysis, Justice Taylor methodically dismantled Mr. Moscipan’s position. The court acknowledged its discretion to alter the usual rule that the loser pays the winner’s costs, particularly when a formal settlement offer has been made. The central test, the judge noted, is whether the offer “ought reasonably to have been accepted” at the time it was made. Justice Taylor concluded that it was entirely reasonable for UBC to reject the offer. He described the proposal as a “bad bargain for UBC,” as it only dealt with one of two personal claims and would have required the university to waive its right to pursue the far more valuable declaratory relief concerning the property.
The judge also found that Mr. Moscipan could not have been unaware of the central importance of the fraudulent conveyance issue. A previous, related court action brought by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, another victim of Ms. Moscipan’s fraud, had already resulted in a 2017 court finding that the very same property transfer was a fraudulent conveyance. UBC had explicitly stated in its court materials, delivered long before the settlement offer, that it would rely on this prior finding. Mr. Moscipan had actively fought against this claim throughout the proceedings. This history demonstrated that the omission of the property issue from his settlement offer was not an oversight.
Furthermore, the court considered Mr. Moscipan’s conduct after the main judgment was rendered. Far from accepting the court’s decision, he initiated a new and separate petition proceeding in an attempt to relitigate his ownership interest in the Tennyson Property. That petition was subsequently dismissed by another judge as an abuse of process. Justice Taylor viewed this action as proof that Mr. Moscipan never truly intended to settle the core property dispute and was, contrary to his own arguments, perfectly willing to prolong litigation and cause additional expense for all parties involved. The judge stated that Mr. Moscipan’s actions showed it was always his intent to “vigorously defend against the Declaratory Relief.”
Regarding Mr. Moscipan’s claim of financial hardship, Justice Taylor noted that he had “adduced no evidence” to support it. The judge also pointed out the persuasive argument from UBC that since the discovery of his wife’s fraud in 2011, Mr. Moscipan had enjoyed the substantial financial benefit of living rent-free in the valuable Tennyson Property for over 14 years, all while refusing to pay anything to the victims of the fraud.
Ultimately, Justice Taylor found no reason to depart from the usual rule on costs. He concluded that UBC was the successful party on all fronts, having won judgment for the full amount of the fraud against the estate and having succeeded on both the monetary claim and the critical fraudulent conveyance declaration against Mr. Moscipan personally. The court ordered that UBC was entitled to its costs of the summary trial, to be assessed at Scale B, with both the Estate of Wanda Moscipan and Miroslaw Moscipan being jointly and severally liable for the payment.
