Launching civil cases against rioters who smashed property and looted merchandise from business owners during Vancouver’s June 15 riot may make business owners feel empowered, but their chances of success are slim.
“There are not a heck of a lot of cases where damages are awarded against petty vandals,” said Borden Ladner Gervais LLP partner David Crerar. “That’s just the reality because of the cost of prosecuting a claim like that when you measure it against the great unlikelihood that the vandal will have money to pay damages. There aren’t a lot of cases out there.”
Photographic evidence is persuasive, Crerar said, but the key for plaintiffs is to be able to “authenticate” those photos and have a witness confirm that the photos are genuine.
Blenz Coffee CEO George Moen told media he is determined to sue looters. London Drugs president Wynne Powell, meanwhile, is waiting for looters and vandals to first be tried in criminal court. If judges do not order restitution, he plans to sue those whom he can identify.
“We’re currently trying to decide the most cost-effective way to do it,” Powell told media one week after the riot.
Exactly what will be covered by insurance is still being determined because the drugstore chain’s policy may provide its insurance companies with what Powell calls an “out.”
Acts of war and mass civil disobedience, such as a riot, may enable insurance companies to deny compensation.
Powell, however, contends that the damage and theft at his store was premeditated by thieves who took two hours to bash in London Drugs’ windows and then selectively take high-priced computers while leaving cheaper ones behind.
Powell has spoken with smaller merchants who don’t have the resources that London Drugs owner, the H.Y. Louie family, have. Some of those business owners have told Powell that they want to join London Drugs in any civil actions that it takes.
Class action lawyers, however, say the best chance of a class action lawsuit succeeding would be one against the City of Vancouver or the Vancouver Police Department, not the vandals themselves.
Businesses could band together to argue that mistakes by authorities somehow contributed to their property damage, said Fasken Martineau LLP partner Andrew Borrell.
Getting damages out of vandals will be difficult.
“In most cases, vandals would have been involved in activities in relation to one business or maybe two businesses,” Borrell said. “You will have different collections of vandals arguably damaging each business. There might be some overlap, but not a lot. The reality is that the claim for each business is going to have to be specific to the vandals that damaged each business.”
Criminal courts sometimes order guilty vandals to pay victims compensation but those payments are usually not that high and, when the vandalism is part of a riot, are rare.
Quebec justice Denis Laliberté ruled in 1995 that if someone is being sentenced for participating in a riot, the purpose of the sentence is to deter future riots. Imprisonment is likely the greatest deterrent, he reasoned.
So, Laliberté sentenced Andrew Fuller to six months in jail, probation and 150 hours of community service for taking part in a riot in Montreal following the Montreal Canadiens’ 1993 Stanley Cup victory.
Laliberté ordered no fine or restitution.
Mischief during a riot in Penticton in 1991 prompted a judge to sentence George Glenn Loewen to six months in jail and 150 hours of community service. Loewen also had to pay three nominal fines of $35 each for vandalism such as damaging a fruit stand.
Then there’s the case that stemmed from what became known as the Canada Day riot in Edmonton in 2001. Offender Mattieu Jacques offered to donate $1,000 to a foundation, whose building he had vandalized.
An Albertan court, however, told him that a more appropriate fine, in addition to a conditional sentence, was $500 because many others were also involved in damaging the structure.
Some of the most watched video from Vancouver’s June 15 riot involved vandals setting two police cars ablaze – an act that an Albertan court decided did merit restitution.
A drunk Leonard Cantois was not part of a riot when he set two RCMP cars on fire in 2005, causing $58,000 in damage. An Albertan court in 2006 ordered him to pay $10,000 in restitution and to take an alcohol treatment program.