(LifeSiteNews) — The Ontario Court of Appeals has dismissed is allowing a $290 million class-action lawsuit against Freedom Convoy protesters to continue.
On March 6, Ontario Court of Appeals Justices David Brown, Peter Lauwers, and Steve Coroza ruled that a $290 million class-action lawsuit against some of those who organized and participated in the Freedom Convoy for creating a “public nuisance causing pain” will be allowed to proceed.
“We are not unconstrained free actors but must all live subject to some rules,” Brown wrote.
“The Charter reminds us that individual action must always be alive to its effect on other members of the community since limits can be placed on individual action as long as they are ’reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” he continued.
The 2022 Freedom Convoy was a peaceful protest in downtown Ottawa, featuring thousands of truckers and Canadians camping outside Parliament to call for an end to COVID regulations.
Despite the demonstration’s non-violent nature, some residents from downtown Ottawa have claimed that the protest disrupted their lives.
In February 2022, the Freedom Convoy leaders were hit with the lawsuit, which originally started at $9.8 million but then ballooned to $290 million. The class-action lawsuit was filed by Ottawa civil servant Zexi Li on February 4, 2022, along with Geoffrey Delaney, Happy Goat Coffee Company, and a local union. It names plaintiffs who have businesses or were working in the city’s downtown core during the Freedom Convoy.
The defendants of the claim are Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber along with a number of other participants and entities. A previous attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed was rejected.
The decision comes just over a year after Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Prime Minister Trudeau was “not justified” in invoking the Emergencies Act to shut down the protest.