Our Leassons Learned From SISIP Action and lets Help our RCMP Brothers

RR,

Kinda sums it up. LMAO with number 3.

Here are my Lessons Learned, SISIP CLASS ACTION SUIT.
NO1. LEAD PLAINTIFF. A lead plaintiff should be a voted member from the class and not necessarily the name on the court order. A lead plaintiff should be a member with extraordinary skills in leadership, related policies pertaining to the suit and well versed with an exceptional language vocabulary minus the ability to be foul mouthed or down right ignorant.
NO 2. LEGAL TEAM. A legal team must represent the class as a whole and not misrepresent the class by denying the class access to all tabled negotiations due to gag orders. By virtue of not having any knowledge of what the negotiations are and how the case has been tabled then you will get what we have here, and in the opinion of a few (15 I have read and been told) a complete lack of trust. (Foot note) most veterans and this includes the 15 retards or crybabies on CSAT have trust issues, duh, that is why we are here taking the GOC to court. A Legal Team must be able to produce without delay, work sheets (to include legal costs, court dates and itineraries with costs,) continual updates, hot line access for those with questions, professional and legal authorities in all fields Canadian Revenue and Government/Provincial Services Canada.
NO3. Get rid of NO1 and NO2 and deal with what you get, nothing better in the world than being fed a daily pile of excrement and being called a whiner, hell I thought I was a disabled veteran who got robbed by the very government I swore to serve.
I REST MY CASE, for my RCMP buddies hope you have a team you can trust after that it is all in the hands of strangers that do not know you. Good luck and God Speed.

Lesson Learned 2

Important to know what the Governments arguments are and what the key issues they want to discuss before going into the negotiations with hired guns who could talk a Inuit into buying ice.

Below is a memo from MC with Mr Toopes direction to talk on points of issue by the GOC. Read them carefully and look at our deal. There are key issues that where up to be discussed but appear to have been swept under table or just accepted.
One ca assume that the same key points will be asked to be clear by GOC rep and I suspect it will be Mr Toope again. Be prepared for the negotiation knowing i advance his issues. Use our deal and dissatisfaction parts of it to craft a better response to the GOCs position.

Extract from Memo to class - after the discussion:
"Meeting of August 3, 2012: Our meeting with Mr. Toope and representatives of the Department of Justice was a positive one. When introducing himself, Mr. Toope advised that he had instructions from the Minister of National Defence to attempt to resolve the claim with us within certain parameters and based on the following principles:

•Resolution is in both parties’ best interest;
•That any resolution will provide finality and certainty;
•Determining eligibility is a key issue to be resolved;
•No “double recovery” (i.e., employment income and SISIP payments);
•That the resolution process must focus on simplicity and intelligibility.
Issues Discussed: The following issues were discussed with respect to retroactive reimbursement:

•Management of Estate Claims – a process by which certain estate claims would be paid directly to spouses and dependent children;
•Tax Neutrality – a process for communicating appropriate tax elections available to the class to lessen the tax impact of the retroactive payments;
•Interest – the appropriate interest to be paid to the class, both pre- and post judgment;
•Cut-Off Date – the period of time that will be compensated (i.e., how far back in time will retroactive payments be made). Although there are potential statutory limitation periods, positive progress has been made with respect to the scope of recovery. This issue is a key component of the resolution discussions and, although we cannot specifically detail the discussions, we can characterize the progress on this issue as positive;
•Zero Sum Claims Management – this issue is the focus of most of the discussion between the parties. The main issue to be resolved, from the Government’s perspective, is how to fairly determine whether an individual was, and is, “totally and permanently disabled” as defined under the SISIP Long Term Disability Policy since the closing of their file with SISIP. We have taken the position that such a determination should be made with reference to medical files in the possession of Veterans Affairs Canada, and the table of disabilities used by Veterans Affairs. While agreement has not been reached on the process, the parties will seek an Order from the Federal Court permitting the sharing of information between VAC and SISIP. Once the information is disclosed, this may assist the parties to determine a fair process which complies with the policy terms, while ensuring the dignity of the participants is respected. At the close of the meeting both parties agreed to consider further proposals on the fairest process to follow in achieving the foregoing.
Why Resolution Discussions? Who Approves the Resolution? Some of you may ask “Why are we in discussions? Didn’t we win?” While it is true that after 6 years of litigation, to the Supreme Court of Canada and back again, that we won at trial on the interpretation of the contract that the Pension Act offset was unlawful, the foregoing issues were not dealt with at that trial. What we are working on now is the implementation of the decision, which gives rise to further issues as set out above. Ultimately we are trying to avoid further litigation (and delays) by involving ourselves in resolution discussions. Should either party be unable to resolve an issue satisfactorily, the issue will be litigated in Federal Court before Justice Barnes. If the parties are able to reach a resolution on all issues, the resolution still must be reviewed and approved by the Court to make sure that it is fair and reasonable.

Clarification on Counsel Fees: Our fees do not form part of the negotiations. We are focused on getting the best resolution on the core issues we can, as quickly as we can, to benefit the members. Once we are done we will review the position on fees. Again fees are not part of the resolution discussions, as only the Court will set the fees. The fee process is completely transparent. We will give notice to the Court and to the members on the amount of the fee we are seeking. The fee request will be based on a number of factors, only one of which is the contractual percentage. Other considerations are legal precedent (what has been paid in previous cases), the risk and cost of the firm to the date of the application, the work completed (appearance in the SCC, and successful trial of the contract issue), the number of people benefiting from the class action, and the amount involved. All of the foregoing is set out in an extensive brief and affidavits which will be available for review by all members and will be reviewed by the Court before the Court ultimately sets a fee that the Court decides is reasonable for the work we have done for you."

Just Lesson learned please.

Listen, I spoken to Peter and we have decided to release the agreement once we get back from our annual """ I love legal fees "" celebration trip to Cuba! You'll hear in 2 weeks, chill, and pass the mojitos , Pete!

the proposal was 3 sheets long... the gag order was placed because they new it wasnt going to be that great of deal.... delay after delay, giving false hope with sugar coated words ..... there was no negotiations the whole time .... the GOC was the boss the whole time and lawyers said yes sir! give me a break we been lied to the whole time and always we be lied to in future on what happened behind close doors.... for the 3 pages it was done the fist month when gag put on us... the rest was just a time game ... GOC and lawyers did a great job to feed us lies to get to magic date 1 april.... anything else is bullshit... YES SIR YES SIR, we did what you told us, now can we get paid..... GOC getting their share from rip off taxes, lawyers getting paid by rip off fees... vets the bad guys because they just wanted what was theirs.....

i hope the rcmp doesnt go through what we had too, we were treated very poorly from lack of info... i am disapointed that questions that were simple in manner that were forward never answered.. also disapointed that email given returned becaused email shut down... not sure if its a fact but the last 2 months i herd several people stated it got return .... GOC and the lawyers make a good team

doesnt really matter how quick he is on decision, my feeling is it cant be done before april 1st , new budget year... the GOC whole time telling judge behind close doors wait till april 1.. delay after delay over last 9 months is the pudding

General view of a round number approximation. I guess I should have said about a month. "Several" weeks is 21 days. 30 days is less then a month. So i'm suggesting 30 days cause saying 23 or 26 days is rather exact. And stating several is not exactly saying 21. Actually it was originally billed by so many here and if posts lead me correctly you suggested same day as hearing. Then it was 2 weeks now its several weeks. Guess 30 is a good safe number.
Would you like a little more pepper for you fly shit.

Rags wrote:Not the thread for this but good question. The answer would be yes to the best of my knowledge the fees can be appealed. By more then just the GOC the class can I would suspect also. But you would have to have a good reason in law to appeal. It cant just be Im not happy with it. The judge has to have made an error in law somewhere or missed a crucial item. That probably wont occur as that is why Judge will not give a yes or no answer on the 14th as so many argued. He will write a decision and think very hard on it to get it right so there is no appeal. Tht is reason we are waiting 30 days for decision.

Ok did I miss the last MEMO ?? I dont believe I have read anywhere 30 days for a decision!!

Direct from Classaction HQ

Dear Class Members:



The Settlement Approval Hearing was held before the Federal Court on February 14 and 15, 2013 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Court heard from Class Counsel, many Class Members and Government Counsel. The Honourable Justice Barnes said that he reviewed all written submissions made by Class Members.

The Honourable Justice Barnes indicated he would release his decision, in both English and French, in a matter of weeks. We will inform all Class Members as soon as the decision is released.

Class Counsel would like to thank all Class Members who made either written or oral submissions to the Court.

wrong thread

Not the thread for this but good question. The answer would be yes to the best of my knowledge the fees can be appealed. By more then just the GOC the class can I would suspect also. But you would have to have a good reason in law to appeal. It cant just be Im not happy with it. The judge has to have made an error in law somewhere or missed a crucial item. That probably wont occur as that is why Judge will not give a yes or no answer on the 14th as so many argued. He will write a decision and think very hard on it to get it right so there is no appeal. Tht is reason we are waiting 30 days for decision.

Wrong thread

Here is my first lesson learned post to RCMP thread.

My RCMP Brothers a Lesson Learned

First most important lesson learned was to get involved in the Class Action!!!!!

You have a right to be involved in the class action early so the best advise and crafting of arguments and your position as a class is clear right from the start. Under Federal Law you have a right to participate see below.

We in the Military class action were not afforded this chance as we did not know about the details of the class action until 21 days before presentations on settlement. No way enough time to argue that the settlement was not acceptable. A better solution would have been to get involved at the early stages so your lead plaintiff does not have to guide and direct legal team all alone.
You cannot have all 10000 of ya doing this but a select group who have been given permission by the class to speak for them and gather there input is crucial. Those people should be strong leaders who will be able to direct law firm rather then do what law firm thinks is best. In the end the answer maybe the same but remember you are hiring them to work for you so tell them what you want them to do. This becomes vital when getting into negotiations with Fees and GOC.

If you cant seem to get into the class action to make decisions due to a legal dance then send a formal request to Judge using below legal paragraph to request you be appointed. For us we should have had 3 to 4 members of class along with the lead plaintiff. Make this request as early as you can so no negotiations are even started before you are there.

THE LAW:
PARTICIPATION
Marginal note:By class members
• 334.23 (1) To ensure the fair and adequate representation of the interests of a class or any subclass, the Court may, at any time, permit one or more class members to participate in the class proceeding.
• Marginal note:Directions
(2) When permitting a class member to participate in the proceeding, the Court shall give directions regarding the role of the participant, including matters relating to costs and to the procedures to be followed.
• SOR/2007-301, s. 7.

No Greatfoot. Good points. I think you touched on an important factor of less of them and stonewalling because they may have an advantage of numbers. Knowing that potential is important o any strategic thought.

And your right on the Government learned allot also.