MONTREAL - Because he died in his car, the family of a man crushed in a parking-garage ceiling collapse in 2008 cannot sue the building owner for damages, a Superior Court judge has ruled.
In dismissing the $940,000 damage claim of the parents and children of Saleh Khazali, Judge Micheline Perrault said the circumstances met the definition of a motor-vehicle accident, and Quebec laws restrict compensation in motor-vehicle accidents to the sums specified by the Société d'Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ).
Khazali, a deliveryman for Courrier Dentaire Express, was making a pickup in Ville St.-Laurent when a portion of the concrete ceiling of the underground garage fell and crushed him in his vehicle.
His family sued the building's owner, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (CAPREIT).
CAPREIT argued that the accident was covered under provincial auto-insurance law and it couldn't be sued outside that framework.
The family countered that the underground garage wasn't a "public road" but a private space, so the law did not apply, but Judge Perrault disagreed.
May 8, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment