Chatham man injured in Hwy. 401 collision plans class-action lawsuit against the province

TORONTO (Sept. 10, 1999) — A Chatham, Ont., man injured in last week’s 82-vehicle pileup on Hwy. 401 plans a class-action suit against the provincial government.

Diamond and Diamond, the Toronto law firm representing the man, said the suit could claim damages of $50 million, “depending on the number of people involved,” The Windsor Star reported. The suit would have to show that the government was at fault for the Sept. 3 crash, which killed seven people.

The newspaper asked Windsor lawyer Harvey Strosberg, who has led several high-profile class-action suits against railroads, was skeptical that such a suit would succeed because no one single factor appears to have caused the crash.

“Let’s suppose 50 cars were going down the road and an airplane dropped on them,” he said. “You’d have an external cause, one external cause. But in the accident you have on the 401, each vehicle is faced with a different question of who caused the damage in that vehicle.”

Meanwhile, the province is conducting a study of the highway, particularly a 66-kilometre stretch near Chatham where 13 people have been killed in accidents this year. Minister of Transportation David Turnbull has refused to answer questions about the report, or whether it will be made public.