Report: Quebec Court of Appeal Upholds Ruling That CP Was ‘Not Liable’ for Lac-Mégantic Disaster

According to the report, the province’s high court heard arguments from three joined appeals “seeking that the railway company be required to pay into a compensation fund for about 4,000 victims of the 2013 tragedy.”

CP (now CPKC) was the only one of 24 companies targeted in a class-action lawsuit that refused to voluntarily pay into the victim compensation fund, which totaled about $460 million, according to The Canadian Press report.

In December 2022, Superior Court Justice Martin Bureau ruled that CP’s behavior, whether at fault or not, was not the “direct, immediate and logical cause” of the damages suffered by victims, according to the report.

That responsibility, the judge ruled, lay with the train’s driver—Thomas Harding— and his employer, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway Limited.

In a ruling on Feb. 26, The Canadian Press reports, a three-judge panel from the Court of Appeal “agreed with that ruling and denied all three appeals.”

On July 6, 2013, “a runaway train hauling tanker cars loaded with crude oil broke loose and barreled into the town of 6,000 before derailing and exploding, killing 47 and wiping out a large swath of downtown.”

CP said it “bore no responsibility for the disaster because the train was not operated by CP employees or travelling on CP tracks when it derailed.”

The Court of Appeal, The Canadian Press reports, found that the appellants “did not succeed in demonstrating that the judge made numerous errors of fact and law.” The three joined appeals were brought forth by a group of citizens, insurance firms that paid into the compensation fund, and the Quebec government.