Yukon's three Court of Appeal justices have censured Frank Calandra, owner of the Skky Hotel, for "reprehensible" behaviour toward another local businessman.

Last year, Calandra sued Winston Henley over a trailer, owned by Henley and stored on a piece of property originally owned by Yvonne Fradsham of Edmonton. Calandra bought the property, located south of the airport on the Alaska Highway shortly after arriving in the territory from Toronto.

Henley had a written agreement regarding the trailer with the original owner, but when Calandra took possession, things went south. First he offered to buy the trailer for a fraction of its assessed value. When Henley refused, Calandra threatened legal action. In a missive sent on his law firm's letterhead, Calandra told Henley that refusing to sell him the trailer would result in a long and costly court battle.

In the meantime, Calandra wouldn't allow Henley onto his property to remove the trailer. Calandra also used the trailer himself while insisting that Henley pay rent on the property. True to his word, Calandra launched a case when Henley refused to budge.

When the case came to Yukon Supreme Court last year, Justice Ronald Veale decided in Henley's favour. He found there was a valid contract between Henley and the property's previous owner. That contract gave Henley permission to keep the trailer on the land until June 2008, on the understanding he would clean up the surrounding area and remove the trailer on his own.

In addition to finding against the lawyer and hotelier, Veale also chastised Calandra for being "high-handed" in his treatment of Henley.

In reviewing the case, Justice Ian Donald echoed Veale's findings about Calandra's actions.

"It is hard to arrive at any other conclusion than that the appellant was using his position as a lawyer to bully the respondent into giving up the trailer by issuing threats of expensive litigation," the Court of Appeal judge said.

In addition to ordering that Calandra pay Henley's legal costs, Veale had also ordered that an engineer from EBA Engineering oversee the cleanup of the site. As Donald put it, "mindful (Calandra's) high-handed behaviour in the past, the judge wanted to head off another quarrel" by having the engineer sign off on the job once the trailer was removed. Calandra asked the Court of Appeal to throw out the order that he pay the engineer's fees, but he had no more success with that than he had with the rest of his appeal.

"It was (Calandra) who argued for the supervision of an engineer in the removal and cleanup process," Donald pointed out. "...Since (Calandra) felt he needed engineering services it is not unreasonable that he pay for them."

Donald and his fellow justices dismissed every aspect of the appeal.

Calandra resigned from the Yukon bar at this beginning of this year. During the Supreme Court hearing, he acted on his own behalf. This time around he was represented by Vancouver-based lawyer John Bethell.