Parents file $1.6M suit after Que. teacher allegedly put kids’ art for sale online

Ten Montreal-area parents are suing a high school teacher and a school board after their children’s classroom art assignments were allegedly posted for sale online.

The lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court seeks $155,000 per family, plus punitive damages and an apology from Westwood Junior High School art teacher Mario Perron and the Lester B. Pearson school board.

A filing dated March 15 says Perron had assigned his students at the St-Lazare, Que., school to produce a “creepy portrait” of themselves or a classmate inspired by the style of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the late U.S. artist known for neo-expressionist paintings and graffiti art.

The lawsuit alleges the students found out in February that the teacher was selling their artwork online without their consent, as prints or on T-shirts, coffee mugs, bags and decor, at prices ranging from US$9.50 to US$113.

“The defendant Perron appropriated and deliberately used the work of his 96 minor students to put them for sale and profit personally from them,” the court document says.

“To top it all, the totality of the works of art used by the defendant Perron for commercial purposes specify the name of the student as author, which allowed them to be identified on a public platform, especially since the works themselves are portraits.”

As of Monday, Perron’s pages were taken down from the sites where he allegedly sold the students’ art.

But screenshots provided by one of the parents, and included as evidence in the lawsuit, shows dozens of colourful portraits listed on the website fineartamerica.com, each identified as a “creepy portrait” followed by a first name.

“Here we are in a digital age, where families and parents are there to scrutinize everything that our children are looking at, but who would have thought that it should have been the parents scrutinizing the teacher?” said Joel DeBellefeuille, whose son’s art is among the pieces allegedly posted online.

The court filing alleges the teacher’s actions violated copyright laws and shook the confidence of parents and students, and it demands that the students’ work be removed from the sales site.

It alleges the school board was negligent in hiring Perron and failing to properly check his public online activity.

The Lester B. Pearson school board declined to comment on the legal action but said in February that it was investigating the allegations and taking them seriously.