{"id":8042,"date":"2014-09-10T13:31:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T17:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8042"},"modified":"2014-09-24T13:35:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T17:35:57","slug":"lawsuits-have-cost-aurora-nearly-1-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/lawsuits-have-cost-aurora-nearly-1-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuits have cost Aurora nearly $1 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Legal bills for old and ongoing lawsuits between former and incumbent members of Council, and members of the public have cost Aurora nearly $1 million over the last seven years. <\/p>\n

This, according to numbers released by the Town on Friday in advance of a presentation on liability claims faced by the Town, due to be presented at Council this week. <\/p>\n

In a presentation by BFL Canada, the Town\u2019s municipal insurance provider, lawsuits which have garnered significant headlines over the past five years have cost $998,934 in legal fees, which have been covered by the Town\u2019s insurance.<\/p>\n

The largest hit to the Town\u2019s premiums comes from Councillor Evelyn Buck\u2019s lawsuit against former Aurora mayor Phyllis Morris, incumbent Councillors Wendy Gaertner and John Gallo, as well as former councillors Stephen Granger, Evelina MacEachern and Al Wilson. While Councillor Buck, as plaintiff in the case, has been paying her own legal fees, those of Ms. Morris, Councillors Gaertner and Gallo, as well as Mr. Granger, Ms. MacEachern, and Mr. Wilson continue to be funded by municipal insurance as they were duly elected members of Council when the lawsuit was launched in 2009. <\/p>\n

Councillor Buck\u2019s multimillion dollar lawsuit claims her reputation was damaged by the defendants stemming from a statement from Councillors published local newspapers relating to Councillor Buck and the now-rescinded Council Code of Conduct.<\/p>\n

So far, that lawsuit has racked up $845,000 on the Town\u2019s insurance bill.<\/p>\n

A judge has yet to render his decision in the case.<\/p>\n

Two lawsuits involving Ms. Morris also racked up a heavy bill. Although the report doesn\u2019t break down the particulars of each case, both the lawsuit unsuccessfully launched by Aurora resident George Hervey alleging Ms. Morris violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act in participating in discussions that led to her 2010 defamation lawsuit against three local bloggers, as well as Ms. Morris\u2019 subsequent lawsuit against the Town of Aurora for her own costs related the lawsuit which started it all, have continued to rack up, currently standing at $153,932. <\/p>\n

While Ms. Morris successfully defended herself against Mr. Hervey\u2019s claims, her lawsuit against the Town of Aurora will next be before the courts on September 23.<\/p>\n

Councillor Buck\u2019s lawsuit aside, these cases do not account for the lion\u2019s share of insurance claims accumulated by the Town. 38 slip\/trip and fall cases have been filed against the Town\u2019s insurers, claiming a bill of $423,000, one claim of alleged injuries \u201cdue to an improperly maintained soccer field\u201d clocking in at $217,487, three claims under \u201cerrors and omissions\u201d for $134,565, 21 claims for backed-up sewers for $71,076, and six claims classified under \u201cmiscellaneous\u201d for $7,000.<\/p>\n

In total, between January 1, 2008 and August 31, 2014, 72 claims have been reported against the Town\u2019s insurers, totalling $1,852,060 in what has been paid, after the Town\u2019s deductible.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s presentation from BFL stems from a Notice of Motion from Mayor Geoffrey Dawe, approved by Council in July, requesting representatives from the company come forward with clarity on just what is driving rising insurance premiums at Town Hall after increasing rates resulted in a significant hit on the 2014 Budget.<\/p>\n

Over the previous year, there was a 43 per cent spike in insurance rates, resulting in a $195,000 hit on Aurora\u2019s overall tax bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Town was impacted by a significant increase in its insurance premiums for 2014,\u201d said Mayor Dawe in his motion. \u201cIt is incumbent on Council to further investigate the matters giving rise to the increase in insurance premiums\u2026.and it is also incumbent on the Town to investigate options for reducing its premium in future years and managing its risk exposure, including financially capping certain types of coverage. It is important for the public to be aware of the pressures impacting the Town\u2019s insurance premiums.\u201d<\/p>\n

His motion requested the insurers to \u201cpublically present\u201d updated information to Council \u201cas soon as possible regarding significant insurance matters\/claims affecting the Town directly, including any amounts and legal costs paid to date for existing claims, and ways to reduce the Town\u2019s insurance premium in future years.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legal bills for old and ongoing lawsuits between former and incumbent members of Council, and members of the public have cost Aurora nearly $1 million over the last seven years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-25I","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-11 05:45:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}