Court endorses class-action lawsuit for Westcourt tenants

[Margaret's boy]

I heard that Dan Gilbert's looking to buy the historic Penobscot Building after it was allowed to fall into a dangerous state of disrepair by negligent and greedy owners from Toronto. Maybe he can buy this property across the river.

Todays' Windsor Star:

"A class-action seeking $35 million in damages filed on behalf of displaced residential and commercial tenants of the downtown Westcourt Place building has been certified to proceed in a decision handed down Monday in Superior Court."
“We won round one,” said lawyer Harvey Strosberg whose firm is representing the tenants. “We are soldiering on.”


A fire in the downtown building located at 251 Goyeau Ave. that started in the garage area on Nov. 12, 2019, ended up displacing dozens of tenants in the building, plus several businesses and the Provincial Offences Court located on the lower floors.


No one has since been allowed to occupy the building more than two years later and Strosberg believes renovations haven’t even begun to be undertaken.


“It’s been two years and three months and no renovations,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling.”


Now that the class-action lawsuit has been certified, the next step is to see over the next month if lawyers for the defendants — the owners and property managers of Westcourt Place — will appeal the certification decision by Superior Court Justice Spencer Nicholson.

Should that not occur, then Strosberg’s next step will be “to make a decision to move for summary judgement” based on the large amount of evidence presented to the court already in terms of damages and costs tenants have suffered due to being displaced from Westcourt.


There are 154 apartment units in the building and tenants from about 120 of those units indicated they wish to be included in the court action to date, along with 14 commercial tenants, he said.


Some of those residents have moved on and do not wish to return to Westcourt, but about half of the tenants definitely want to return to the building, if possible, Strosberg said.


Related
Westcourt Place repairs will take 'many months,' says building management

Nicholson in his ruling declared: “In my view, this is a textbook case regarding access to justice that favours a class action.”


Lawyers representing Westcourt Place had argued tenants should instead seek damages from the Landlord and Tenant Board, but Nicholson in his ruling disagreed as he noted: “the amounts claimed exceed the monetary jurisdiction of the small claims court, which is determinative.”


dbattagello@postmedia.com

[Rocket]

I don't understand.

Do the tenants "own" their respective units? Or are they renters?

If renters, then you'd think they had no case. Just rent elsewhere.


But if they own their units, then for sure they have a case. But wouldn't it be against the management company THEY would have hired?

The post above makes it sound like the building is owned by some company, in which case the renters should just move on, and it's up to the company how much money they wish to hemorrhage in not doing the repairs speedily.

Can you clarify?

[Danny]

Come on Gilbert, Buy the Penobscot Building.

[Richard]

“It’s been two years and three months and no renovations,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling.”

The fire happened on Nov 12 2019,stay at home order was issued mid March 2020,I think it is going to be tough to use that time line,you cannot really count the time after the stay at home order.

Nobody works,holidays or 24/7 so break it down even more to actual working days,with the added well known labor shortage that was going on before 2019 even.

Agreed,it is only showing one side of the story and not enough information.

The owner of the P building passed away,so they are not here anymore to defend themselves,most likely when the estate gets settled the status may change,but once again not enough current information in order to pass judgment.

Gilbert could have bought it for the 5 million in 2012 and choose not to,why would he want it now at probably 20 million or more and stick another 40 million or more into it,material costs alone are insane,it is still a negative investment.

60 million buys a lot of ready to go properties in the city.

[Margaret's boy]

From what I found on the internet, the landmark Westcourt Place was built in 1975 and was the first high-rise in the city to have a mirror-glass facade. It was the city's tallest building until the construction of the 31-storey Victoria Park Place in 1979. The first six floors are designed for commercial purposes while the remaining 15 floors are strictly residential. Like the Penobscot Building in Detroit, it's had a number of owners over the last half century and according to former tenants the building fell into disrepair long before the fire. The tenants do not own their units, they only rent them. Their was talk of converting the building to condos years ago but nothing came of it. From what I can gather, rents were fairly reasonable. This might be the reason many displaced residents want to move back. Unfortunately, the company that owns Westcourt Place invalidated all the remaining leases. Personally, I think the owners have been purposely dragging their feet on the repairs to give them an excuse to cancel the remaining leases and charge much higher rent in the future. How else do you explain the fact that new condos have been popping up all over Windsor and Essex County over the last two years?