Lawsuits against the City are piling up, six months after the disastrous fire which cost the lives of seven people in a heritage building in Old Montreal. The Pointe-à-Callière museum accuses the municipal authorities of having been “complacent” with the owner of the burned building and is demanding $3 million for the damage the blaze caused it to suffer.
In this new lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Quebec, the museum’s management claims that its establishment suffered damage that could reach three million dollars when a fire destroyed the heritage building at Place d’Youville on March 16. last. The damaged building, owned by the lawyer and businessman Émile Benamor, is located very close to the museum.
The museum and the insurer Chubb deplore “the failure of the City to adequately inspect the Benamor building”, as well as “the complacency of the City towards Benamor”.
“The Benamor building was described as a fire trap, which did not meet standards,” asserts the lawsuit, written by lawyers Louis-Philippe Constant and Frédérique Tremblay, of the Clyde & Co Canada firm.
The City of Montreal has already declared that it will not comment on the legal proceedings initiated following the tragedy.
Last week, the owner Émile Benamor himself filed a lawsuit for 7.5 million against the City, blaming it for the severity of the fire, under the pretext that it would be resistant to the modernization of heritage buildings and that the reaction of the firefighters would have been too weak.
The family of Charlie Lacroix, one of the victims who died in the fire, filed a lawsuit almost simultaneously in which they are seeking a total of $1.5 million in damages jointly from the City of Montreal, Émile Benamor and Tariq Hasan, an entrepreneur who sublet Mr. Benamor’s accommodation on the Airbnb platform.
The family of Nathan Sears, who also died during the tragedy, has already filed a request for class action against Mr. Benamor, Mr. Hasan and the company Airbnb.