Parents file $1.5M lawsuit after Quebec teacher accused of selling students' artwork online
A group of parents have filed a lawsuit against a Montreal-area high school art teacher and his school board after students found their classroom artwork available for purchase on the teacher's personal website last month.
The parents of 10 young students at Westwood Junior High School in Saint-Lazare, Que., an off-island suburb west of Montreal, filed the lawsuit for $1.575 million, or $155,000 per plaintiff plus punitive damages, against the teacher, Mario Perron, and the Lester B. Pearson School Board (LBPSB) for al‐ leged copyright infringement.
Edith Liard, one of the parents represented in the lawsuit filed in Quebec's Su‐ perior Court Friday, said the incident turned her daughter off the idea of becoming an artist.
"My daughter loves art, al‐ ways has been into art, and this year after everything happened, she said to me, 'I don't think I'll do art next year,'" said Liard.
"I was surprised because she's always been artsy at home before school, and she actually picked Westwood be‐ cause of their art program."
Joel DeBellefeuille, anoth‐ er parent represented in the lawsuit, says while the amount of money sought might seem outrageous, it represents the scale of intel‐ lectual property infringement that took place.
"We requested $5,000 per artwork that was infringed," he said, saying there were 31 pieces of plagiarized mer‐ chandise per student. Only 10 parents are represented in the lawsuit.
Statutory damages range from $500 to $20,000 per work under Canada's Copy‐ right Act.
According to the lawsuit, Perron assigned his 96 stu‐ dents a project called "Creepy Portrait" in January, in which students drew a portrait of a classmate or themselves inspired by the style of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The students submitted their projects in February and were shocked to stumble upon their classroom art‐ work being sold after finding their art teacher's website.
On it, the students found their "Creepy Portraits" avail‐ able for purchase as prints as well as emblazoned on cof‐ fee mugs, T-shirts and cellphone cases - with some items listed for as much as $174.
"Here we are in a digital age where families and par‐ ents are there to scrutinize everything that [kids] are looking at … but who would have thought that it should have been the parents scruti‐ nizing the teacher?" DeBelle‐ feuille said.
WATCH | Quebec teacher allegedly selling students' artwork online:
In addition to the money, the lawsuit states the group of parents is asking for a written apology from Perron, the removal of the students' artwork from all websites and a report of any sales made in connection with the plagiarized works.
"It will teach them a les‐ son because they broke our trust. The teacher broke the trust of the parents to teach the students," said Liard.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, Liard and DeBellefeuille say parents had sent the LBPSB a demand letter making similar requests. DeBellefeuille says it went unacknowledged.
The teacher and the school board now have two weeks to respond to the law‐ suit.
In an email Sunday, the LBPSB told CBC News it does not comment on internal in‐ vestigations or human re‐ sources issues.
Last month, the school board said it is investigating and takes the allegations se‐ riously.
CBC was unable to reach out to the teacher as previ‐ ous methods of contacting him were unavailable. The teacher did not respond to repeated requests for an in‐ terview last month.