Lawyers

Lawyer slowly predicts US $ 250 million Pink Hill Valley Parkway class motion lawsuit towards Hamilton – Globalnews.ca

admin July 3, 2020

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A lawyer at one of two law firms involved in a multi-million dollar lawsuit alleging improper design and maintenance of the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) said the representative plaintiffs had asked a judge for theirs Class action against the city of Hamilton to be confirmed.

Robert Hooper of Grosso Hooper says the families of the casualty Corinne Klassen and Michael Sholer filed documents with a court on Tuesday asking for a class action lawsuit for $ 250 million.

However, according to Hooper, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the case is not moving as quickly as he and his customers had hoped.

Continue reading:

Families of accident victims on Red Hill Valley Parkway file a class action lawsuit of $ 250 million against City of Hamilton

"Hopefully we'll meet with Justice (Gerald E.) Taylor either by videoconference or in person next month or in six weeks to set a schedule for the final certification hearing, which we currently expect to occur sometime in the Spring 2021 will take place next time, ”said Hooper.

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Two law firms in Hamilton, Grosso Hooper and Scarfone Hawkins, represent drivers who have crashed on the RHVP since it opened in 2007.

The two families who head the lawsuit are relatives of Klassen, a London housewife who was hampered by an accident on the motorway in 2007 and Sholer, who died in an accident on the RHVP in 2017.

The suit draws much of its evidence from a 2013 Tradewind Scientific report analyzing friction values on the parkway and suggesting some road safety issues.

The audit recommended "remedial measures" and an examination of the asphalt after it was found that the friction values were "below or far below" the British safety standards used as the benchmark in the study.

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The report was released in 2018 when the new Hamilton City Director of Engineering Services came across the Tradewind study and its recommendations for "further investigation of road surface, composition and wear performance" and "further investigation".

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The lawsuit alleges three errors by the city in connection with the construction of the road and two errors in connection with the non-disclosure of the third party report to the public.

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The Red Hill Valley Parkway request will continue with a virtual session on July 7th

Hooper customers' application for certification of the suit comes a week before the Red Hill Valley Parkway Investigation (RHVPI), which the city commissioned in February 2019, will resume to answer questions about the Tradewind report.

Although the legal steps and investigation are "apples and oranges" and not interdependent, Hooper and his customers still have some interest in the possible results, according to Hooper.

He believes that RHVPI Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel is unlikely to launch the investigation as expected this fall due to the delays associated with the ongoing pandemic.

"I think the public statements made so far by his lawyer Rob Centa have shown that for various reasons, including the pandemic, this process has not gone as quickly as they hoped."

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Victim of the crash on Red Hill Valley Parkway, families excluded from public investigation

In a press release on rhvpi.ca, Commissioner Wilton-Siegel said the investigation was still in the "document collection and research phase" and had not yet interviewed anyone of interest who was related to the case.

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The article said that the coronavirus pandemic "caused a certain delay" due to physical distancing and problems with some participants and non-participants related to the investigation.

In February, Wilton-Siegel excluded the clients of the two law firms from the investigation and said it was in the best interest of the investigation to rely on a "broader" coalition of affected citizens who share personal experiences related to accidents on the Parkway.

The RHVPI virtual public hearing will take place on Tuesday, July 7th at 10 a.m.

In a statement to the investigation, city officials noted that judicial inquiries "are a way for governments to investigate issues outside of the regular legislative process" and can help communities "independently and impartially review public issues." Public inquiries can also help shape public order and make recommendations that will serve the public in the future. "