Its coming fast, lets start mailing the judge

bigrex yaaaa im sure peter means the best but im not sure its a great idea for you ore anyone elce for that matter to submitt their oppinion of case law to a fedeal court judge.im sure i dont need him to tell me how to calculate the ammount of c-4 i need to do a job and how to shape it.yes im sure he is a good guy and not get insulted he may even read it.the meat of my letter to the judge will start in bold.pleas sir accept (dont accept)this settlement for the following reasons.

1.yada yada yada

2.yada yada yada

3.yada yada yada

short sweet respectfull and to the point.

just my sudjestion
i hope this makes sence

propat

Are we to pay legal fees on monthy cheques from sisp going forward?????????????????[b]

Peter, is it fair to say or ask for a very favourable per-post interest rate.Is this maybe something that the GOC would entertain, I just got back from the legion and all the buzz down there is there will be no damages, and this is getting a lot of guys very upset. The way it looks , if those guys don't get damages they will more than likly ask the judge to refuse it. I just want it over, but , but, if we just get our monthly offset back plus inflation , it's a little hard to swallow , thanks , Peter for being so honest with us

Actually Rex send you info Navrat's way. Nav is spearheading the Educate Canada Operation.

The plan is to to start blitzing the public to get them on our side and have the GoC pay the legal fees.

Bigrex, not sure there is anything I can say to convince you we have considered all of the case law and pro and cons of taking the approach we have. All we as certified counsl can do is rely on is our collective experience and judgement of what is the best we can do for the class, rather than the uncertainty associated with future litigation. Ultimately the Court decides whether what we think is in line with the case law to ensure our judgement is sound. The only item I can assure you at this stage is we have considered all cases and options and we continue to press hard in the negotiation process.

Perhaps your assessment of the case law is best submitted to the Court, and I would encourage you to submit it once the proposed resolution is distributed.



All the best,

Peter

Big Rex - Nice to see your doing your homework even if it doesn't apply to us? Our faith in Mcinnes Cooper is strong and i hope they listen to our concerns ....

Principles are important to me but I am not as hungry as the rest so I will accept what the majority agrees on. I realize I don't know anything about lawsuits but i have a Gut feeling we could be battling for more.

With the efforts the GOC put up fighting this I find it hard to believe they are being sweet to us now. They will pay only what they must. The press release if it ever comes will be like what they said about Sean Bruyea publicly as they reluctantly paid his legal fees!! In case you do your homework he originally asked for 200000 then up it to 400000 to cover his legal fees- his settlement didn't infer that the government paid legal fees but the additional monies was for just that.

If there is no battle there is no victory! (in this settlement stage)

The awards assigned in class actions like the Hep C and residential school settlement were comprised completely of damages. There was no recovery of monies in either of those cases, so the money was solely as punishment for government wrongdoing. For some those damages were up to $100000+. Then there was the recent case of the female RCMP officer than was awarded over a million dollars because her boss called her a liar and damaged her reputation. So awarding large amounts in damages may be rare in Canada, but damages themselves are not. So simply returning our money, plus interest, is not adequate punishment to ensure the government or other organizations do not try to pull this type of clawback in the future.

So no Damages award ?

The government will not be challenged on paying legal fees because they rarely had too in the past and your firm believes it is a 10% chance of succeeding if we did request it?

Class Members, the 60% number I quoted was an example of the high end overall recovery of other individual commercial litigation cases. Often it is much less. A class action is the most efficient way to recover monies for a large group, so whatever the result, it is far better than 7500 individual cases. There will not be an award of 60% of retro. for punitive/aggravated damages. (By the way "damages" in civil cases means all monies recovered, punitive damages or monies awarded as punishment are rare in Canada. Our civil litigation system is based on compensation not punishment).

Again, we would caution members about completing calculations until the package is distributed as there are a number of assumptions which are incorrect in completing such calculations. You will not be able to assess whether it was "worth it" until the proposed resolution is distributed.

Am I reading this correctly.

1. The agreement will not have the government paying legal fees not ever a portion of them? Yes or no?

2. We will get our retro- including interest -(100% of The claw back)

3.Class member "may" get damages to likely max out at 60%? (60% of the retro?)

4. We will pay taxes?

I will admit that the negotiations are going fast, but not only should this class action not have been necessary, but it certainly should not have had to take 4 years and a trip to the Supreme Court to be recognized as a class action. The government wanted to fight the certification tooth and nail, knowing that if we were required to file individual lawsuits, most of those affected could not afford to retain a lawyer, So even if a handful of Vets did sue and win, the government would likely have said that since more did not sue, that we are accepting the clawback, and therefor would not discontinue the practice. But as a class of 7000 strong, voicing our objection of the clawback, and then supported by the courts, the Government has no choice but to change their tune, or face public outcry.

Bigrex, Now you know one of the main reasons why Mr Toope was appointed ..........to keep things moving!!(saves govt money in long run).........from what has been released, there is no way our guys can prove these delay tactics ............actually people are saying this is progressing quickly.

Please , Peter , don't say years, mere weeks are enough to kill most of this class. The GOC doesn't want to pay and who wants this case stretched out until I am worrying about Old age security. I , personally want this over and over sooner rather than latter. Peter mentioned that in these cases , the class usually gets 60 percent of what they planned, So 60 percent is better than nothing, and my gut feeling is this GOC only wants to pay the bear minimum required by law. What the hell do you do, I am sure our law firm has spent many hours debating this , and remember its in the best interest of the class, and with the GOC playing such hardball , there is really no winning with them, these are the same people who won't even cover funerals for deceased vets

Bigrex, thanks for your note. We have spent significant time assessing the potential success of such an application (which is our job as certified counsel) and view it to be less than 10%. That's the difficulty with trying to respond in the forum, you don't see the work that goes into our professional assessment of every issue.

We are making progress on a global resolution. Of course there are a number of issues we could litigate in the coming years, but our goal is to secure what we are able to now, based on case law and a negotiated settlement, that is in the best interests of the class. So on any issue it's not just about asking, it's about trying to win a contested motion, and we have to assess the probability of winning. It is my belief that once the class sees the proposed resolution, that the vast majority will be satisfied with what has been achieved, and that is our job as certified class counsel. Sorry the law won't allow me to achieve what you want.

All the best,

Peter

No disrespect Peter, but that is your opinion. Why not ask Justice Barnes and let him decide if the actions of the Defense meet the listed criteria. Worst case scenario is that he says no. If our case doesn't merit awarding of costs, then I doubt there would ever be a case that would. It's like a poster I saw in my kids school the other day about Basketball, that said " You'll miss 100% of the shots you don't take". So unless you ask, we will never know if the Judge agrees or disagrees.