The non-profit organization Juripop has just obtained permission to intervene before the Court of Appeal in the case of a woman whose lawsuit against billionaire Robert Miller was dismissed at first instance because she accepted an envelope containing $50,000 in cash.
The non-profit organization Juripop has just obtained permission to intervene before the Court of Appeal in the case of a woman whose lawsuit against billionaire Robert Miller was dismissed at first instance because she accepted an envelope containing $50,000 in cash.
In our view, the decision that will be rendered by the Court of Appeal in the Robert Miller case will be decisive for the future, because it will answer the question of whether a person who is a victim of sexual exploitation can tacitly waive his or her rights and remedies. The answer given to this question is likely to affect the rights and remedies of all victims.
Me Sophie Gagnon, General Manager of Juripop
Is hanging the envelope consent?
Last March, a woman who said she was recruited in high school by a “sexual exploitation network” working for the billionaire saw her $8 million civil suit dismissed by the Superior Court.
The evidence showed that the woman had already participated in a meeting in the office of Robert Miller’s lawyer, during which she had been offered $50,000 in an envelope if she agreed to waive any future civil proceedings (she retained the right to participate in criminal proceedings).
The complainant had left the meeting with the $50,000, without signing the requested waiver. Superior Court Judge Marc St-Pierre determined that her lawsuit could not go forward: by taking the money, she had implicitly waived any future lawsuit, even without signing a document to that effect, the judge ruled.
The woman, represented by the law firm CaLex Legal, is contesting this decision before the Court of Appeal, which has agreed to hear her.
“The appeal will therefore raise the question of the possibility of implicitly consenting to a transaction,” stressed Court of Appeal Judge Benoit Moore, in a decision rendered Thursday.
The context of sexual exploitation, essential to the debate
PHOTO ARCHIVES THE PRESS
Robert Miller, founder of Future Electronics
The judge also agreed that Juripop could intervene on a friendly basis on “the need to take into account the context of sexual exploitation, which involves an imbalance of power between the parties, as well as the impact of the trauma of the victims in order to assess their consent.”
The magistrate believes that Juripop, which receives public funding to provide legal services to victims of sex crimes, “can bring a useful perspective” to the case. He adds that the context of sexual exploitation “is essential to the debate” and “cannot be ignored,” even if the Miller camp may try to call it into question.
Juripop will be represented free of charge by the law firm Gowling for its interventions. No date has been set at this stage for the hearing of the appeal.
Along with several civil proceedings, Robert Miller was arrested by Montreal police and charged with several sex crimes in late May. He is awaiting trial on the criminal side.