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Marin is seeking two years pay — about $450,000, according to the last two years of Ontario’s Sunshine List — plus $3 million in damages.

The ombudsman’s office will “vigorously defend” against the claims, said its lawyer Robert Little with Hicks Morley. The Clerk of the Ontario Legislature, Deborah Deller, said she could not comment on the matter.

The statement of claim argues Marin suffered wrongful dismissal, misrepresentation and detrimental reliance — which means he believes he was intentionally to believe he would get a third term and he suffered as a result of believing those claims.

A Law Society of Upper Canada complaint filed before he left office against lawyer and pundit Warren Kinsella is also currently being pursued by Marin.

Marin served as Ontario Ombudsman from 2005 to 2015, and his second term expired at the end of May of that year, but he was granted a three-month extension to mid-September to allow for the hiring process to unfurl. That became unusually contentious, with the committee comprised of MPPs from all three parties hitting a stalemate. Subsequently, the government announced September 14 it would restart the process and deputy ombudsman Barbara Finlay would temporarily run the office, at which time Marin was ousted.

Because the Marin believed “his reappointment would be a simple and mechanical process”, the lawsuit claims he missed out on looking for other work, despite the public posting of the job on the legislature’s website.