A round-up of the bizarre lawsuits winding their way through Canada’s courts
British Columbia: The owner of the Blenz Coffee chain is suing 150 hockey rioters—John Does 1 to 75 and Jane Does 1 to 75, some of whom Blenz owner George Moen says can be identified from videos—for damages done in the Stanley Cup riots to three downtown franchises, including one where the franchisee barricaded herself, two employees and a customer in a bathroom to protect them all while the store was extensively trashed. Blenz is the first Vancouver business to file a lawsuit against the rioters.
Manitoba: A German family is suing their immigration consultant, who they say urged them to lie to immigration officials about a previous criminal charge—a traffic conviction. The conviction was eventually discovered and the family now faces deportation.
Ontario: A security guard with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority is being sued by her ex-husband, who alleges that she used airport security cameras to spy on his travels through Pearson Airport with their children. The lawsuit also named another GTAA employee who allegedly helped the ex-wife, as well as the GTAA itself, which is also facing an investigation by the federal privacy commissioner over the incident.
Quebec: A Montreal forensic art expert is suing a journalist from The New Yorker over a July 2010 article that questioned his methodology of using fingerprinting to authenticate artwork thought to be by Leonardo da Vinci and Jackson Pollock. Seeking $2 million in damages, Peter Paul Birio called the article “a false and defamatory screed.”
Nova Scotia: A 41-year-old former foster child is taking the Nova Scotia government to court, claiming it’s restricting her access to information. All the names in her government file—including people in her nine foster families and high school teachers—were deleted, she was told, to protect the information of third parties. The province’s Supreme Court will hear the case in the fall.