Canadian Supreme Court reinstates veterans’ class-action suit

Supreme Court reinstates veterans’ class-action suit


By Janice Tibbetts, Postmedia News December 23, 2010

OTTAWA — A class-action lawsuit against the federal government for clawing back the disability payments of injured military veterans can go ahead after the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday refused to throw out a legal challenge from a former Nova Scotia soldier.

"We're one step closer to having our day in court," said Dennis Manuge, the lead plaintiff in the suit, who served in Bosnia before he was released from the military on medical grounds.

The former corporal received the high court's unanimous approval for up to 6,500 veterans — more than half of them with mental-health problems — to sue the federal government for millions of dollars.

Their victory comes at the end of the year in which the government was under attack from the former veterans' ombudsman, Pat Stogran, who spent his final months in office, chastising the federal government for what he described as a "long-standing and deeply rooted" practice of treating veterans unfairly.



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