Lawyers for Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) are in Barrie court today looking to get their hands on computer records and Local 183 merchandise seized in a raid.
Labour
TORONTO
Lawyers for Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) are in Barrie court today looking to get their hands on computer records and Local 183 merchandise seized in a raid.
Lawyers are leveraging a rarely used provision of the law to a Barrie Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge. They say they have enough evidence to show materials were taken from the Local 183 offices and stored at an area home belonging to a former employee.
In addition to caps, t-shirts and other branded paraphernalia, lawyers seized several computer disks which may contain membership lists from Local 183 and pertinent information taken when the outgoing executive stripped the offices of almost every document dealing with finance and meetings.
The court issued an Anton Pillar order, a civil search and seizure warrant which allowed a court-appointed lawyer to go to the premises and demand entry in a similar way police do with criminal search warrants.
Anton Pillar orders are most often issued to allow owners of copyright material to enter a premise and seize materials. The other party is not notified of the application nor if an order is granted.
In the LIUNA case, lawyers presented evidence from Local 183 employees who swore they had delivered materials to the home. They argued successfully that the unannounced raid was necessary because if their intents were known, the materials they sought would be destroyed or moved.
Named in the statement of claim were: Former business manager Tony Dionisio, former comptroller Dario Di Sante, former secretary-treasurer Joao Dias, former business managers Louis Torres, Victor Ferreira, Jon Goncalves, Mario Cavalheiro and Joel Filipe.
"There were essentially no records when the trustees arrived."
Dan Randazzo
LIUNA Lawyer
It seeks damages of $100,000 per person plus a $1 million punitive fine. This action is in addition to a lawsuit filed in December seeking $2.8 million in funds LIUNA claims was improperly spent on surveillance. None of the allegations in either statement of claim have been proven and the defendants have not yet filed their rebuttal with the court.
After a lengthy standoff at the door of Torres’ home in Brantford, the court-appointed lawyer was permitted to enter.
“They have two hours on presentation to get legal advice and during that time, the court-appointed lawyer — not our lawyer — is supposed to be inside making sure nothing is destroyed,” said Dan Randazzo, LIUNA’s in house counsel. “But they refused entry and we’re going to be filing a motion for contempt of court on that.”
He said caps, ties, t-shirts and other branded apparel was seized “worth several thousand dollars.”
“We don’t know the full inventory because the court-appointed lawyer has it in a secure place,” he said. “We will go to court Friday to report back and to find out what was seized.”
He said LIUNA is particularly interested in the computer disks because while the old executive was clearing out prior to being replaced by the trustees, materials were aggressively shredded.
“There were essentially no records when the trustees arrived,” said Randazzo. “On any given day, there is usually one bag of shredded materials. That day, there were 12 bags of shredded paper.”
Lawyers for Torres will argue the computer disks should not be handed over because they contained “privileged information.” Randazzo says LIUNA is taking that to mean it contains communications and documents between lawyers and clients which are generally protected by law.
However, he says, LIUNA’s lawyers will argue the disks should be examined to see which ones may have documents pertinent to Local 183.
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