Ultimately, the plaintiffs brought a claim against the Toronto Police Services Board (“TPSB”), alleging negligent investigation and seeking a declaration that the police should reinvestigate their son’s death as a homicide. The TPSB brought a motion to strike the claim under Rule 21 of the Rules of Civil Procedure on the basis that no duty of care was owed by police to victims of crime and their families and that the plaintiffs’ claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action or was statute barred.
The plaintiffs argued that the police owed a duty to them, as family members of a victim of crime, to conduct “a reasonably diligent investigation of [their son’s] death and to properly classify the death as a homicide or undetermined.” The motion judge disagreed, holding that the Court of Appeal had already determined in Norris v Gatien and Wellington v Ontario that no duty of care existed between police and the victims of crime and their families. The motion judge found that it was plain and obvious that the TPSB did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiffs and struck the claim in its entirety.
The appeal court panel ruling upheld trial judge Justice Ross Collver’s decision, which stated that the police are guardians and not guarantors of public safety. Collver found the police officer was negligent, but said there was no direct evidence to suggest the RCMP’s failure to investigate her complaint caused the violent outburst.
Miembros del Ku Klux Klan recuperaron armas del maletero de un automóvil antes de abrir fuego contra los participantes del Partido Comunista de los Trabajadores “Muerte a la Marcha del Klan”, resultando en cinco muertes y 11 heridos, Greensboro, Carolina del Norte, 3 de noviembre de 1979.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan recovered weapons from the trunk of a car before opening fire on Communist Workers’ Party “Death to Klan March” participants, resulting in five deaths and 11 injuries, Greensboro, North Carolina, March 3 November 1979. The police gave directions of the march.
