Court rejects class-action certification of bus-crash lawsuit

The Ontario Superior Court has rejected the certification of a proposed class action lawsuit arising from the January 2019 Westboro Station bus crash.

A notice of action was filed less than a week after the Jan. 11, 2019, crash that killed three OC Transpo passengers and injured 23 others, asking the court to award $60 million in damages to crash victims and the families of those injured and killed.

At the time, Evatt Merchant, a partner with the Merchant Law Group partner based in Ottawa, said the law firm had been approached by a passenger on the Route 269 bus that crashed into the platform at Westboro station. The passenger, a Kanata resident, was the representative plaintiff in the case.

In a memo to councillors, city solicitor David White said the lawsuit was one of 22 formal statements of claim that had been issued in connection with the bus crash.

In determining that the proposed lawsuit was not suitable for a class action, the court took note of the fact that, in its handling of individual court actions, the city had admitted liability for the losses arising out of the collision, White said in his memo.

“As a result of the city's considered approach to the other claims, and noting the class action plaintiff's desire to advance broad allegations of systemic negligence, the court determined that there were, in effect, no advantages to having the lawsuit proceed as a class action,” White wrote.

“The court noted, in this regard, that `(C)lass proceedings are not to be used to needlessly inflate tragic accidents into public spectacles.'”

The plaintiff has until April 23 to either convert the lawsuit into an individual action or to amend the claim and renew the effort for certification as a class action, White wrote.

A class-action lawsuit can be brought by one person on behalf of others (known as a class) who have suffered similar harm.

A judge must decide whether to certify a case and allow it to proceed as a class action.

After the 2013 OC Transpo-VIA Rail crash that killed six bus passengers and injured dozens more, the city faced 39 individual lawsuits seeking more than $26 million in damages.

By the time of the Westboro crash, 35 of those lawsuits had been settled for $9.7 million.