The original class action's claim of systemic negligence was unsuitable for certification: court
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice allowed an amended claim from the 2019 Westboro bus crash to proceed as an individual action and rejected the City of Ottawa's challenge.
The plaintiff’s original class proceeding was dismissed in 2021 because it focused on systemic negligence rather than driver negligence. The court dismissed the City of Ottawa’s cross-motion to block the amendment and declare new claims as statute-barred.
The case originally began as a proposed class action after the crash, which resulted in three fatalities and numerous injuries. In January 2021, the court refused class certification, finding the claim’s structure—targeting the city’s broader responsibility rather than the driver’s specific negligence—unsuitable for class action. The decision not to certify the class was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ultimately refused leave.
Following this, the plaintiff sought to amend the original claim to pursue new individual claims against the city. The city opposed the amendment, arguing that the new claims were not part of the original filing and should be barred by the two-year limitation period under Ontario’s Limitations Act. However, the court had to determine whether the proposed amendments introduced new causes of action or were sufficiently rooted in the facts already pleaded in the initial claim.
The Superior Court ruled that the original claim had indeed set out facts sufficient to support claims of driver negligence and the city’s vicarious liability. The plaintiff’s initial pleading included allegations of inadequate driver control and a lack of proper training and oversight, which formed the basis for the amended claims. The court emphasized that under Ontario’s pleading rules, material facts rather than specific causes of action must be stated. As a result, these facts were protected from the limitation period by the suspension rules in s. 28 of the Class Proceedings Act, which halts the limitation period while class certification is pending.
The court allowed the amendment, finding that the claims for negligent operation of the vehicle, training deficiencies, and systemic negligence were preserved by the original filing. The court noted that although the decision to seek class certification did not bar subsequent individual claims, pursuing these additional claims may complicate and increase the litigation’s expense. Nonetheless, this was not an issue for the court to resolve at this stage.
In conclusion, the court granted the plaintiff’s motion to amend, allowing the individual claims, including those related to the station's design, bus, and transit system, to proceed.
