A lawyer representing the father of a man killed in a fire in Old Montreal in March says an announcement by police that the fire was criminal raises new questions for her client.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
The family of Charlie Lacroix, the 18-year-old woman who was killed in an Old Montreal fire in March, is suing the City of Montreal, the building’s owner and an alleged operator of illegal Airbnbs. The plaintiffs say the two men and the city, by their negligence, are responsible for the deaths of Ms. Lacroix and others and are asking for more than $1.5-million in damages.
The three-storey, 14-unit heritage building was destroyed when a fire, now being investigated as arson, started early on the morning of March 16, leaving seven dead and injuring nine other people.
According to the lawsuit, Ms. Lacroix joined friends who had rented an apartment on Airbnb on the second floor the night before to have a party. She and her friend Walid Belkahla, another victim of the fire, decided to stay there that night when their friends took the party elsewhere.
When the fire broke out, Ms. Lacroix and Mr. Belkahla were probably alerted by the smoke, as the plaintiffs allege there was no fire alarm. Survivors have previously told The Globe and Mail and other media that the fire alarms did not work.
The young man and woman both called 911 for help but, despite connecting with emergency services, could not get out because the only exit was blocked by flames and thick smoke. The plaintiffs allege there was no fire escape and no window in the apartment, as The Globe and others have reported.
Since the tragedy, “a multitude of information concerning the Defendants has been revealed, demonstrating their total negligence in this matter,” the lawsuit alleges. It was filed in Quebec Superior Court by Gowling WLG lawyers Charles Daviault and Mathieu Papineau on behalf of the family.
None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been proven in court.
City inspectors visited the building on multiple occasions throughout the years and found numerous irregularities making it “dangerous for life and human safety.” Nonetheless, “no follow-up was carried out” by the city to shut down the building or have it removed from short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb, which are prohibited in that part of the city, the plaintiffs say.
The Globe and several other outlets reported in April that the building was flagged on multiple occasions for safety violations related to firewalls, alarms and exits, among other things. Last month, The Globe revealed that in 2013 the City of Montreal asked the municipal court to drop charges against the building’s owner, Emile-Haim Benamor, related to non-compliant evacuation routes and alarm systems. The city declined to disclose the reasons for that request.
There is no record of some of the issues ever being resolved.
According to the lawsuit, Mr. Benamor and Tariq Hasan, the other defendant, knew they were renting units in a dangerous building, “thereby endangering the lives and safety” of everyone in the building.
The two businessmen “failed in the duty owed to all to act with prudence and diligence,” the lawsuit alleges, “only in order to derive the greatest possible benefit from it, which makes their faults even more outrageous.”
Mr. Benamor and his lawyer, Alexandre Bergevin, did not answer The Globe’s requests for comment. Neither did Mr. Hasan.
In May, The Globe learned that the Montreal fire department had instituted a moratorium on the investigation and enforcement of evacuation routes years before the deadly fire, then quietly lifted the moratorium days after the fire as a direct result of the tragedy.
The plaintiffs denounce this decision at length in the lawsuit. “The City, by secretly establishing this Moratorium, abdicated its obligation to ensure the conformity and security of the Building,” they allege. “The City knew that the Building was dangerous and its representatives knowingly decided to do nothing, which led to Charlie’s death.”
The City of Montreal declined to comment “out of respect for the legal process,” spokesperson Camille Bégin wrote in an e-mail to The Globe.
Ms. Lacroix’s parents, Louis-Philippe Lacroix and Marie-Ève Lacas, are asking for $615,000 in compensatory damages for the pain they and their son, Dérek, felt after their loss, the “extreme suffering” Ms. Lacroix likely endured before her death and the costs of the funeral.
They are also asking for $300,000 in punitive damages from each defendant, as their behaviour “must be denounced so that such a situation never arises again,” the lawsuit says.
Annette Lefebvre, a lawyer for Randy Sears, who lost his son, Nathan, in the fire, filed an application in March to launch a class-action lawsuit against Mr. Benamor, Mr. Hasan and Airbnb. Ms. Lefebvre is seeking $22-million in punitive damages for Mr. Sears and the families of other victims, along with an undetermined amount in compensatory damages.
She said in August that she is also contemplating a lawsuit against the City of Montreal.
An investigation into the deaths by the coroner’s office has been put on hold until the completion of the criminal investigation into the arson, led by Montreal police, or the end of any judicial process that might stem from any charges laid.
In response to The Globe’s reporting in May, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has asked the city’s comptroller-general to probe the fire department’s moratoriums on the enforcement of safety regulations in the years leading up to the fire.