Blockade class action could award damages to disrupted highway users

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Clear The Road highway blockade class action lawsuit overview: 

• Who: An initiative called Clear The Road threatened to file a class action lawsuit against the group Save Old Growth. 
• Why: Clear The Road wants to prevent Save Old Growth from using a highway blockade to protest old-growth logging in British Columbia.
• Where: Clear The Road wants to prevent the potential blockade from occurring in B.C.

An initiative called Clear The Road said last week that it is considering filing a class action lawsuit against members of the group Save Old Growth over a highway blockade campaign affecting British Columbia commuters.

Save Old Growth, which wants to end old-growth logging in B.C., had paused its campaign after a series of arrests but resumed it recently.  

Several more arrests of Save Old Growth members involved in traffic-stalling blockades in Vancouver, Richmond and North Saanich have since been reported, Global News reports. 

Clear The Road, meanwhile, threatened to file a class action lawsuit against Save Old Growth over what the former is calling a “nuisance-causing highway blockade campaign,” according to a news release for the blockade class action. 

According to Clear The Road founder Tamara Meggitt, the blockades are an “intentional” violation of the Criminal Code of Canada and seek only to cause nuisance for B.C. commuters. 

“Save Old Growth is purely a nuisance campaign, as the organizers have admitted,” said Meggitt in a statement for the blockade class action. “As they know, British Columbia already has world-leading standards in place for protecting rare ecosystems.”

Clear The Road cites precedent for potential class action claim

Clear The Road cites a class action lawsuit filed earlier this year against individuals who used an “illegal blockade strategy” to target the areas of Metro Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo as precedent for its potential complaint. 

The initiative argues that, while freedom of expression is a protected right, it does not give Clear The Road the right to commit “criminal acts.” 

“It isn’t environmentalism to block roads and force hundreds of drivers to burn extra fuel idling in an artificial traffic jam. That’s hypocrisy and has a real impact on people’s lives,” Meggitt said in the statement. 

Clear The Road says it has the support of public-interest research group Resource Works Society and collected almost 1,000 signatures of individuals wanting to make sure police don’t let blockaders take over the streets. 

“We were very encouraged by the response from police forces we spoke to. They know the law as well as anyone, and now we must rely on Crown prosecutors to follow up,” Meggitt said. 

Have you been inconvenienced or otherwise affected by a highway blockade? Let us know in the comments!

Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:

• Grizzly bear hunting class action seeks compensation for guide, outfitter financial hardship
• Tim Hortons federal privacy report confirms app tracked users’ location data
• Indian Day School Class Action Settlement Questioned By Survivors, Advocates
• Diocese of Quebec Sex Abuse Class Action Lawsuit Receives Authorization