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November 20, 2006 200 WORKERS ASK B.C.’S HIGHEST COURT TO LET
THEIR CLASS ACTION PROCEED Lawyer Joseph Arvay, Q.C. has submitted the Appellants’ factum (detailed legal arguments) and received a hearing date to br ing the class action lawsuit James v. British Columbia before the B.C. Court of Appeal for a second time. The appeal will be heard in Victoria on April 17, 2007. Former Youbou mill worker Ken James brought the lawsuit against the B.C. government in July 2003 under B.C’s Class Proceeedings Act. James alleged that he and over 200 other IWA and mangements workers lost their jobs when the government removed from TimberWest Forest Limited’s forest licence a requirement that the mill be kept open in return for Timber West’s access to public timber. The B.C. Supreme Court certified the lawsuit to go forward as a valid class action in 2004. The B.C government appealed the certification decision but lost in the Court of Appeal which upheld James v. British Columbia as a class action. The B.C. government then applied to have the lawsuit ended before the 200 workers got to present their case in court – the government argued that the class action was a re-litigation of a lawsuit started in 2001 by IWA Local 1- 80 but abandoned by the union in 2003. The B.C. Supreme Court agreed with the government that the issues in the two lawsuits were the same. The Court said that the workers represented in the James class action were not parties to the abandoned IWA case, but were close enough to that lawsuit that they should not be allowed to carry on with their class action. The workers’ legal counsel, Joseph
Arvay, Q.C., says he is “cautiously optimistic about the case
and feeling good about the factum and our chances of success.” |
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