A Calgary judge has certified a class-action lawsuit against a disgraced former lawyer who was found to have revictimized thousands of residential school survivors.
David Blott took on about 5,600 people as clients — mostly from the Blood Tribe in southern Alberta — who were applying for compensation for abuse suffered at residential schools.
Blott is accused of failing to properly represent his clients, abusing their trust, put his own financial interests ahead of theirs, charging excessive fees and even facilitating illegal loans that he allegedly profited from ahead of settlements.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Alan Macleod’s decision paves the way for thousands of Blott’s former clients to seek damages.
“In my view, leaving class members to bring claims on their own is to effectively abandon most of the former Blott clients,” wrote Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Alan Macleod in his decision to certify the class action earlier this week.
The suit was launched in Calgary in 2013. Since then, many survivors have died, waiting for some type of resolution — including Annie Plume, who was one of the “representative plaintiffs” of the class-action lawsuit along with Andrew Bull Calf and Doris Bird.
Blott’s clients were applying for compensation for the residential school settlement program in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
In his decision, Macleod called the residential school system an “acknowledged stain upon Canada’s relationship with First Nations.”
Many of the children who attended were abused physically, mentally, emotionally and/or sexually. They were also deprived of family and community contact.
Blott treated clients ‘like cattle’: law society
In the statement of claim, the lawsuit alleges Blott and some lenders encouraged, facilitated, arranged and profited from loans to survivor claimants.
“This class of people are vulnerable. They are, for the most part, impecunious,” wrote Macleod.
“It was important to resolve residential claims through the class-action process, and I doubt very much if justice could have been obtained for residential school attendees other than through a class proceeding.”
In 2014, a Law Society of Alberta panel found that there were reasonable grounds to believe Blott’s collection of interest rates may have been criminal in nature.
The panel also found “victims of the residential school system were effectively revictimized and treated less like human beings and more like cattle” by Blott.
Blott gave up his licence to practice in 2014 while the law society was still investigating his conduct. He was ultimately disbarred.