Judge Ends Scrap Metal Family Feud

Chester Waxman has lost his 20-year legal battle with brother Morris.

In a dramatic ending to a two-decade feud that split Ontario's ruling family of scrap metal, a Toronto judge ruled late last week that Chester Waxman had stolen their father's empire from his older brother, Morris.

A decisive victory for Morris, the order in the Superior Court of Ontario reinstates the two brothers, who have been feuding since 1988, as co-owners of a Hamilton scrap company, I. Waxman & Sons Ltd., which is expected to take in $50-million in revenue this year. The ruling also orders Chester and his family to turn over up to $40-million to Morris -- and possibly some racehorses and Group of Seven paintings as well.

"I'm very pleased with the outcome," Morris said yesterday. "After 20, sometimes very difficult, years I finally feel that justice has been done."

Of the ruling, Chester, 75, said from the I. Waxman office yesterday: "I haven't read it and I have no intention of reading it right now. I have to run a business. It hasn't been the most pleasant of situations, but we carry on, we're busy, we have families to look after, which we are continuing to do."

The 440-page ruling caps a lawsuit filed by Morris Waxman in 1988, which went to court in 1998 and lasted two years, making it one of the longest trials in the province's history.

Madame Justice Mary Anne Sanderson took 18 months after the trial ended to reach her conclusions. In her ruling she agreed with Morris that his brother Chester duped him in 1983, just before open heart surgery, into giving up his half share in the family business.

The judge believed Morris's account, that he signed away his ownership without knowing it, because Chester had always been in charge of the paperwork, while Morris ran the sprawling fleet of trucks and extensive scrap yards.

She quotes as decisive these words from Morris's testimony of 1999: "My case is about trust, sir, trusting my brother. This case is about the fact that Morris was looked after, when it came to money, all his life, by his brother. Okay? This case is about the fact that I trusted him. This is ... about the fact that I loved him."

Much of the lengthy trial revolved around the roles of the warring cousins: Chester's sons, Robert, Warren and Gary, and Morris's sons, Michael and Douglas. It also painted a picture of some of the games played in the early days of Philip Services Corp.

The judge saved some of her strongest criticism for Robert Waxman, calling him a "clever, but not a credible, witness." She said Robert diverted profits from the family to his own businesses and tampered with documents. The tampering helped induce Allen Fracassi, who was then building Philip Services, to stop doing business with Morris's company and sign a deal with Chester's company, the ruling says.