Firm news

Carlingview Manor Class Action

August 12, 2020

Thomson Rogers has issued a class action proceeding claiming $25 million on behalf of residents of Carlingview Manor and their families.

Carlingview Manor is a long-term care home owned by Revera Long Term Care Inc., located in Ottawa, Ontario. At least 61 residents at Carlingview Manor have died as a result of contracting COVID-19 and related illnesses.

One of the representative plaintiffs is Stephen Hannon. Stephen’s father, Roy, was a resident at Carlingview Manor. Roy contracted COVID-19 while residing in a shared bedroom with three other residents at Carlingview Manor and died on May 15, 2020.

Stephen Hannon represents family members of the victims who have lost loved ones, without given the opportunity to say good-bye, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak at Carlingview Manor.

Carlingview Manor is one of many long-term care homes in Ontario that requires four residents to share a single bedroom. On June 10, 2020, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health introduced a Directive that prohibits further placement of residents in three or four bed ward rooms at long-term care homes.

A CBC Marketplace investigation found that a majority of deadly COVID-19 outbreaks occurred in older long-term care homes with four-bed wards that were operating at the outdated 1972 structural safety standard. The investigation included Carlingview Manor.

It is alleged that Carlingview Manor’s failure to upgrade and/or renovate its building design, including eliminating four-resident bedrooms, caused and/or contributed to the mass spread of COVID-19 at the home.

It is further alleged that following Ontario’s declaration of a State of Emergency on March 17, 2020, Carlingview Manor failed to implement screening measures of its staff and basic social distancing practices, including the separation of infected and non-infected residents. It is alleged that during this period, there was severe under-staffing at Carlingview Manor and a failure to provide basic personal protective equipment to Carlingview Manor’s staff.

“This is the fourth action Thomson Rogers has advanced on behalf of residents of a long-term care home in Ontario. It is shocking to see that many of these facilities, including Carlingview Manor, have not updated their structural design for decades and continued to allow four residents to share a room during the pandemic,” said Stephen Birman, a partner involved in the class actions.

Stephen Hannon and his family, as well as other families of the victims and survivors of Carlingview Manor, seek compensation for their tragic losses. Stephen Hannon hopes that the independent commission into Ontario’s long-term care system and the proposed class action will result in meaningful change to ensure that a tragedy like this is never repeated in Ontario’s vulnerable long-term care population.

For further information regarding this claim, please contact Stephen Birman at Thomson Rogers at [email protected] (416-868-3137) or Lucy Jackson at [email protected] (416-868-3154).