Cory Wanless in the news – “Evicting Lote Ocho – How a Canadian Mining Company Infiltrated the Guatemalan State” —
September 26, 2020 – Cory Wanless and his clients featured in The Intercept regarding a lawsuit against Hudbay Minerals Inc. for the alleged gang-rapes of 11 Mayan Q’eqchi’ women at a Canadian owned mine in Guatemala.
“[Rosa Elbira Coc Ich] and the others are now suing Hudbay Minerals Inc., a Toronto-based mining company that bought Skye in 2008, acquiring Skye’s legal liability. During the ongoing lawsuit, the women’s lawyers obtained the emails, photos, and other documents cited in this story through the discovery process and filed them in court as exhibits in an affidavit.”
Read the full article here.
First Nations men sue Ontario Provincial Police over racial profiling and violent arrest —
July 22, 2020 – Waddell Phillips lawyer Cory Wanless has teamed up with Promise Holmes Skinner to launch a lawsuit against the Ontario Provincial Police on behalf of two First Nations men, Randall May and Aaron Keeshig, regarding a violent police take-down, assault and arrest. The lawsuit alleges the police committed racial profiling, Charter violations, assault, battery and wrongful arrest.
CBC News – “’Illegal assault’ on First Nations brothers by police caught on video was racist, lawsuit alleges https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-police-video-lawsuit-1.5661097
CBC News: The National – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyxI5DG49BE
Barrie Today – Indigenous men recount altercation with OPP that sparked lawsuit https://www.barrietoday.com/police-beat/indigenous-men-recount-altercation-with-opp-that-sparked-lawsuit-video-2598573
Dr. 6ix, Defendant to class action brought by Waddell Phillips, with co-counsel Beyond Law and Howie Sacks & Henry, is subjected to professional discipline hearing: —
May 26, 2020 – John K. Phillips obtains settlement, including apology for wrongfully convicted Métis man. —
Cory Wanless Nominated for Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada 2020 —
Cory Wanless was recently nominated for Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada in the Human Rights, Advocacy and Criminal category. Vote for him here, conveniently located at the bottom of the fourth page: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CL-Top25MostInfluential-2020 . Voting closes June 5, 2020.
From his nomination:
“Wanless was counsel in Maxwell-Crawford v TTC, the case where a young Black man was tackled to the ground by three TTC officers, without cause, causing the plaintiff serious injury. The systemic racism of the TTC was broadly exposed through this action, and it was ultimately acknowledged publicly by the TTC chairperson…
February 28, 2020 – Cory Wanless, quoted in the Canadian Lawyer about Supreme Court of Canada case Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya —
A Canadian mining company that is a majority owner in a mine in Eritrea may be sued for alleged abuses that occurred in that country, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Friday. The Court’s ruling holds that corporations can be held liable in civil law for breaches of international law, and that the act of state doctrine is not a bar to the claim. The decision stands to have implications for Canadian companies with operation abroad, notably in the resources, technology and armaments sectors.
“It’s important, because there are a number of corporate accountability lawsuits that are proceeding in Canadian courts right now,” says Cory Wanless of Waddell Phillips PC in Toronto, who was lead counsel for the intervener International Human Rights Program of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law before the Supreme Court.
[A] “big takeaway” from this decision “is that the Supreme Court showed a real willingness to take seriously international human rights law,” Wanless adds, and “a real willingness to engage in these novel questions or how international human rights law should be applied against corporations for breaches of international law.”
Read the full article here.
December 19, 2019 – Class action launched against LifeLabs over privacy breach affecting 15 million Canadians —
TORONTO, Dec. 19, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Waddell Phillips PC and Klein & Schonblum Associates have launched a national privacy breach class action against LifeLabs and associated companies on behalf of the estimated 15 million Canadians whose personal information, including highly sensitive health information, was compromised in a cyber attack. The cyber criminals demanded, and LifeLabs subsequently paid, an undisclosed amount as a ransom in an attempt to secure the data. The compromised information includes, but is not limited to, medical lab test results, health card numbers, names, addresses, emails, login information, passwords, and dates of birth.
LifeLabs is one of the largest medical testing companies in the world, providing diagnostic medical testing services, including specimen collection, laboratory testing, and reporting of results to patients and health practitioners, across Canada. Each year, LifeLabs performs over 112 million laboratory tests on Canadians.
It was not until December 17, 2019, almost two months after the attack occurred, that LifeLabs first made a public announcement about the attack and the subsequent privacy breach.
“Health care records, and in particular lab test results, are some of the most private and sensitive personal information a company can hold. Unauthorized access and use can be devastating,” said David Fogel, a lawyer with Klein & Schonblum Associates. “It is extremely distressing that not only did LifeLabs fail to protect the personal health information of its clients, but that it took them almost two months to tell the public about it.”
“The scale of the LifeLabs privacy breach is truly massive – it affects over three quarters of all Ontarians and British Columbians,” said Cory Wanless, a lawyer with Waddell Phillips. “Basically anyone in Ontario or BC who has gone for any form of medical testing over the past several years is affected.”
The class action team is being led by Margaret Waddell. Ms. Waddell, founding partner of Waddell Phillips, is recognized by multiple lawyer ranking agencies as a leader in plaintiff-side class actions, and has acted as class counsel on a number of prominent cases.
Further information regarding the proposed class action will be posted as it becomes available at www.waddellphillips.ca/class-actions/
| Contacts: | ||
| Cory Wanless Waddell Phillips PC (647) 874-2555 cory@waddellphillips.ca |
David Fogel Klein & Schonblum Associates (416) 480-0221 dfogel@ksalaw.com |
Nov 7, 2019 – Waddell Phillips lawyer Cory Wanless quoted in the New York Times regarding an attack against mine workers at a Canadian gold mine in West Africa. —
“It is highly distressing that Semafo made the decision to protect its expat workers by flying them to its mines precisely because of past attacks on ground convoys, and yet continues to rely on exposed ground convoys for its local workers,” Mr. Wanless said. “To me, this reeks of a Canadian company valuing the lives of Canadian and other Western expats over the lives of Africans.”
Waddell Phillips continues to support the need for legal accountability of Canadian mining companies for human rights abuses and other harms that occur in other nations.
Read the full article here.
