Six years after fire gutted a high school, a lawsuit launched by the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøpublic board , a court has ruled.
In a decision issued in July that helps frame ongoing legal action over a 2019 blaze at York Memorial Collegiate, the judge also rejected other allegations put forward by the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøDistrict School Board.
“It’s public entity versus public entity,” said Erik Knutsen, a law professor at Queen’s University, of the $91 million case against º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøFire and the Ontario Fire Marshal, among others.
No one was injured, but the board incurred significant costs given the extensive damage.
The TDSB launched the case in 2021, alleging in court documents that responders failed to properly secure the scene, which led to a “rekindling” of the initial fire, and that they then tried to cover up what happened in statements to the media and in a report.
None of the allegations have been tested in court, and neither the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøDistrict School Board nor the City of º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøwished to comment on the case given the ongoing litigation. (The cover-up allegations were previously .)
“Normally, you’re not suing the fire marshal,” Knutsen said. “Normally they’re the people telling you what happened and why.
“This is just a procedural decision — but it does mean that this will now go through the trial process.”
At the time the suit was launched, the city said its staff “co-operated fully and professionally in the investigation of the fires at York Memorial Collegiate ... (and) looks forward to vigorously defending against these allegations.”
The 90-year-old school, on Eglinton Avenue West, went up in flames and was mostly destroyed following the “rekindling” of a smaller blaze that had been contained to the auditorium, the board said in its original statement of claim, accusing º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøFire of not providing a fire watch once the first flames were dealt with.
In the July ruling, the judge said “it is not plain and obvious” that the allegation that the board was “owed a duty of care by the (Ontario Fire Marshal)” would fail, and that the allegation that the marshal “made negligent misrepresentations that (the board) relied upon to its detriment” is “an arguable claim that is not certain to fail.”
However, alleging that the fire marshal “failed to warn the (board) of the danger of leaving the fire scene with only the security guard in place has no chance of success,” as well as “some of the specific negligence claims (that) seek to impose duties such as fire suppression and fire watch” that the fire marshal does not have, the ruling stated.
Courts rarely strike claims, Knutsen said, “unless there is “no reasonable chance for success, or it is doomed to fail ... It doesn’t mean they will actually prove (the allegations), it just means they get to go on to the next stage.”
Erika Chamberlain, a law professor at the University of Western Ontario, said “the school board is saying ‘we relied on your representation to our detriment. We thought you had everything under control. We thought that following your orders, we were doing what we needed to do.’ ”
The board has previously said it and its insurer are looking to recoup the costs from the fire, which forced the relocation of 900 students and staff from the historic school, .
The provincial government kicked in $11 million to help with the reconstruction.
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