Municipal database statistics reveal that the City of Toronto has spent more than $27 million in settlements for various lawsuits. These include false arrest, car chases, use of force, negligent investigations, sexual assault etc.

This information was accessed under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act RSO 1990. This Act gives the right to ask certain public sector organizations in Ontario for information that they hold. There is no restriction on age or resident-ship and anyone is free to make such a request. This includes information that is held on print, film, electronic records (emails), plans, drawings, photographs, sound-records (voice mails) or DVDs.

The police are one of the agencies that are covered by this Act. In this particular period, many of the cases were governed by confidentiality agreements and were hence unavailable for release. However, it was revealed that the City of Toronto has spent a total of more than $200 million since 2000, to settle civil lawsuits.

Plaintiffs ranged from people struck by flying golf balls to prisoners alleging that they were assaulted in police custody. Nearly one in four was related to road and sidewalk maintenance.

Police cases included:

• Action of a Police Dog: 4 settlements
• Car Chases: 15 settlements. Of these, the largest one was settled for almost $2 million
• Assault in custody: 2 settlements
• Bodily Injury in Custody: 3 settlements
• Injuries/Property Damage During Arrest: 11 settlements
• Search and Seizure: 12 settlements
• Related to the G20 Conference June 26-27, 2010: 9 (policing) 5 (use of force) 3 (Charter violations) 1 (crowd control/rioting)

Others:

• Slip and fall: 140 settlements
• Trip and fall: 107 settlements
• Arboreal misadventures: 57 settlements
• Discrimination: 33 settlements
• Human Rights: 22 settlements
• City Vehicle Related: 186 settlements

However, a police spokesman, Mark Pugash, clarified that these settlements are not an admission of liability in any given case.

In many cases, the city’s insurance company does the calculations and concludes that fighting a case would cost more than settling. The spokesman also opined that given the fact that Toronto police has had more than 15 million contacts with the public since 2000, the number of settlements (250) is not particularly high. There has also been a rise across Canada in civil litigation.

The city “self-insures” or pays for claims below $5 million with city funds and maintains a reserve to cover claims. Any claims above this are paid by the city’s own insurance coverage. Such claims don’t show up on the public information database.

Toronto lawyers concur and feel that the number of settlements don’t reflect the actual situation, as many cases are unreported and uninvestigated.