A Windsor law firm has asked a judge to accept their $7.3-million class action settlement for the people and businesses displaced after a fire at Westcourt Place in 2019.
During a settlement agreement hearing Thursday, lawyers with Strosberg, Wingfield Sasso told Justice Spencer Nicholson the building is slated to reopen sometime between November 2025 and January 2026.
It’s been uninhabitable since November 2019 after a fire in the parking garage.
Court learned a fire in an electrical busway arced and spread to a vehicle parked underneath.
It would take Windsor firefighters more than three hours to put the fire out.
In that time, smoke filled the stairwell and hallways causing a mass evacuation and significant damage.
The tenants who lived in 154 residential units and those with leases for the commercial space have been displaced ever since.
Tenants will get damages
If Justice Nicholson agrees with the settlement agreements, tenants will be paid for various damages.
Anyone who was at home at the time of the fire will receive $1,000 for the “trauma” of being evacuated during a fire, according to class action lawyer Justin Smith.
Those who weren’t home at the time will receive $500.
Each individual tenant will receive $6,000 for the initial evacuation from their home or business.
They are also eligible to receive $200 per month – up to a maximum of 40 months – for having to live somewhere else between January 2020 and March 2024.
Tenants who have already given up their lease inside Westcourt will receive $2,000.
Those that did not, but who chose not to return to Westcourt Place will receive $5,500.
Tenants who want to move back must let the court know.
Rent to go up for tenants who return
Tenants from 17 residential units have indicated they plan to return home to Westcourt Place.
Court learned they face an 11.4 per cent increase in rent, according to Smith.
“The Westcourt building was not the Shangri-la,” Smith told the court.
According to Smith, Westcourt had the lowest rental rate in the City of Windsor and the expected rent upon return is likely below what rent would cost today had the fire not happened.
The lawyers arrived at the increase based on stipulations on rent control in provincial laws.
Should Westcourt Place decide to increase rents because of upgrades to the building, the owners would have to go through proper channels separate of the class action lawsuit, Smith told the court.
City of Windsor unhappy with settlement
Court learned the City of Windsor – a member of the class action - is not happy with their share of the settlement offer.
At the time of the fire, Windsor’s Provincial Offences court was located inside Westcourt Place with a lease set to expire at the end of 2019.
Windsor was forced to quickly relocate the court and affiliated offices to city hall.
That work cost the city $4,040,211.12.
“That was the city scrambling to find a suitable alternative in accordance with their obligation to the Ministry of the Attorney General,” city lawyer Ian Katchin said Thursday.
Katchin told Justice Nicholson the city’s two insurance companies denied their claim for coverage under their policies. A lawsuit has now been filed by the city against its insurers.
The class action settlement offer meanwhile only allows the city to claim just over $169,000 for losses caused by the Westcourt fire.
“One of the reasons the city was caught so off guard by this is that this is not what class counsel led the city to believe,” Katchin said Thursday.
In email exchanges with the ‘class counsel’ (ie. lawyers for Strosberg, Wingfield Sasso) Katchin says they were given reassurances that the city’s $four-million-dollar claim would be a part of negotiations with Westcourts insurance company.
The settlement does allow the city to claim social services expenses (assisting tenants in the days after the fire) and the expenses incurred by Windsor Fire and Rescue in putting the fire out.
However, it also requires all administrative and legal fees be paid out of the commercial fund – and not the residential tenant fund.
That fund only has $500,000 to share between all 20 commercial class action members, minus legal fee and administrative costs of distributing the settlement.
At best, the city can only claim $25,000 less class action fees and expenses.
Three residential tenants (of the 140 class members) are also opposed to the settlement.
One, Michael DiSchiavo told the court Thursday the money he could be getting isn’t enough for the disruption the fire has caused to his life.
Justice Nicholson has two choices. He can either agree with the settlement and let it proceed to payouts, or dismiss it and the parties would be forced to renegotiate.
The judge did not say when he will have his decision.
