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
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