Is a class action lawsuit the only solution here?
Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:39 AM
From: "name withheld; <email address withheld
To: name withheld:
Dear (name withheld)
The primary purpose of the civil law courts is to safeguard the rights of the individual. They exist to remedy a wrong. It is their duty and responsibility to realistically assess and to evaluate personal injury and to compensate the victim accordingly. That is why they exist –civil law deals with the responsibility to remedy individual wrongs.Competing interests have produced a cottage industry of “legal experts” who have adopted another purpose, and that is, to protect the interests of insurance companies that cross ethical lines and thereby deny victims the compensation they deserve.
It is fortunately very easy to identify the bias of those who cross the ethical line. Indeed, any intelligent person ought to be able to determine that the practice of agencies like the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is counterproductive. As a matter of fact, instead of compensating victims of crime, they are actually hurting them. I have clearly experienced the harm they are doing to traumatize people and I have no doubt that it merits a class action lawsuit because they have absolutely no right to hurt us in the manner that they are.
I suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder and I can authoritatively and conclusively reveal that every time I read news reports like the following, I relive my own trauma, and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is directly responsible for that.
Even on the heels of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s recent promise to inject common sense and compassion into the highly criticized CICB, Donna (yet another victim like Liz Hoage) has received a letter from the board rejecting most of the meagre claims she applied for after arrests were made in her grown son’s murder. Arrests that came after four years of searching for Billy Mason’s body and holding out hope that he might, somehow, , still be found alive. A rejection letter received Friday tells Donna she will not be compensated for “mental and nervous shock” or for “pain and suffering.” “For them to tell me I am less of a victim because I didn’t witness it is a disgrace,” says Donna. “They’ve shamed me, they’ve embarrassed me and they’ve added to my anguish.”The response, "they've added to my anguish" is clearly actionable, in my opinion.
The bogus claim that “the law” is denying all these victims the compensation they deserve is such a farcical fraud, I would be shocked if the CICB's preposterous assertions have not made everybody they have inappropriately denied, stoop to their vulgar level through the language of absolute disbelief and frustration –you can imagine the outbursts...
I know what the law is, but most of all, I know what it is not. When I stand before a Judge from the Superior Court of Justice and he or she reaches a decision without examining the evidence, I know that this person is a total fraud who is merely protecting the interests of the insurance industry because it is not possible to produce a legitimate decision without the deliberation that is necessary to do so. It is therefore clear and obvious to me and to any reasonable person, the claim that the utterance of a biased Justice is “the law” is totally preposterous.
For one reason or another, lawyers frequently act like one miscarriage of justice justifies another, and that is a delusion I do not accept. The fact is, every single case that is brought before the courts is potentially a precedent, and every miscarriage of justice is one that should be appropriately denounced.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board typically justifies the total abdication of reason, responsibility and accountability through the bogus claim, “we are circumscribed by law”. That is rarely, if ever, true. We are all circumscribed by the need to be fair, reasonable (unbiased) and just. The fact is, we are all servants of the law and the Board’s refusal to adopt the standards of a community that is thoroughly disgusted by their decisions is a tell-tale sign that the Board has not been circumscribed by anything beyond total ignorance.
In my experience, it is reasonable to assume that when you inject reason and logic into the equation, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is like a desperate, delusional lunatic that is shopping around to find a Judge who will say that “cows can fly.” Indeed, that is exactly what they do to discredit people who stand up for their rights. According to at least one Superior Court of Ontario Justice, I am a psychotic (allegedly a pre-existing condition that is supposed to neutralize evidence that I suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder) and under the circumstances, isn’t that a badge of honour? After all, I am not the one who needs to have my head examined, am I? If I was, technically speaking, I wouldn’t know it.
Now the choices are very, very clear. You need not take my word for anything. You can either believe me when I tell you that I am not nor have I ever been a psychotic, or you can believe all the lawyers who claim that “cows can fly”.
But you should never ignore the victims who say "they've added to my anguish" when they talk about the CICB.
Sincerely,
Name Withheld
David Bruser is the Toronto Star Reporter whose story about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, the provincial agency that is supposed to compensate crime victims was published on March 13, 2011. Since then, the outrage over CICB practices has refused to abate. On March 31, 2011, we contacted Mr. Bruser, to request his views about the letter printed above, and this is how that brief email exchange went:nsnews: What do you think about this letter?
David Bruser: What about it? I don't mean to be obtuse, but what are you asking me?
nsnews: Do you agree with the point of view expressed in the letter or do you agree with what the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board says when it refuses to compensate traumatized victims?
David Bruser: I think I like to let the news stories I wrote speak for themselves. I am not paid to offer my opinions, and as I am a newspaper reporter, I think it's smart for me to refrain from doing so. I hope that makes sense.
nsnew: It makes good sense, and they have spoken loud and clear. Thank you.
ANAYLSIS: David Bruser is a fine investigative journalist, and as he says, his stories speak for themselves -and what are they saying? Peter Warwick of St. Catharines, was motivated to write Premier Dalton McGuinty, to tell him how barbaric it is to deny compensation to traumatized victims of crime. Joan Gregson wrote to the Star: “That is the most appalling story.” She said the board’s treatment of the three mothers was “cruel and unfeeling bureaucratic misjudgment ... For the love of God, let’s bring a bit of compassion into the law.” Amy Quinn of Grafton, Ont., said: “I have just written the (Compensation) Board to air my disgust.” Denis Schiavo emailed: “(The board) had no issues to pay police. To hear the reasons that the (the mothers) were denied just makes me sick ... They have to fight a system that was put in place to help them.” Like the letter above, everybody understands the fact that it is a grotesque miscarriage of justice to allow the CICB to continue to dehumanize traumatized victims, and it is time to hold the Board accountable for this dizzying ignorance.If this is not a slam dunk, where a class action lawsuit is concerned, justice in Canada is either on life support or it is absolutely nonexistent. Where are all the lawyers now?
We are not talking about Aristotelian logic with static classifications and quantitative laws that are fixed. Justice is supposed to reign supreme and the barbaric proclamations of those who seek to turn the law into an orthodoxy which gives the prejudices of special interests the opportunity to dominate, are the architects of the miscarriages of justice that reporters like David Bruser are currently writing about.
And rest assured, reporters who expose the lunacy of denying grieving mothers have merely scratched the surface. Ignorance, prejudice and systematic misrepresentation has replaced pure reason to the point where deception is so common, it has made a total mockery of the entire judicial process.
Read more about the victims that are denied, not as a matter of law, but as a direct consequence of absolutely indefensible ignorance.
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