The lawsuit had been settled last month but it was not discovered until this week.
http://www.globalmaritimes.com/Ashley+Smith+case+Parents+Brunswick+teen+settles+wrongful+death+suit/4725654/story.html
Linda Nguyen, Postmedia News: Wednesday, May 4, 2011
TORONTO - The family of a New Brunswick teenager who strangled herself to death in an Ontario prison four years ago has settled a multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government, less than two weeks before a coroner's inquest into her death is set to get underway.
Nineteen-year-old Ashley Smith was found dead in a segregated prison cell at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., in October 2007. She had fatally choked herself with a piece of cloth around her neck.
The details of the settlement will not be released due to a confidentially agreement.
"The matter was satisfied to the satisfaction of the parties," said the Smith's family lawyer, Julian Falconer Wednesday.
The family had launched the lawsuit in July 2009, seeking $11 million in damages for the death of the troubled teenager.
According to the statement of claim, it had named 20 defendants including a number of prison guards, wardens, the Attorney General of Canada and the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
The lawsuit alleged Smith was unlawfully segregated for nearly a year and not helped even though she was deemed a suicide risk.
"Losing a daughter is a tragedy and would be difficult for any family," he added. "Losing her daughter have to fight this battle has been difficult for Coralee Smith. So closing this chapter is a relief."
The lawsuit had been settled last month but it was not discovered until this week.
On Monday, a three-justice panel heard arguments at a divisional court hearing into whether Ontario deputy coroner Dr. Bonita Porter erred by not including prison surveillance tapes of Smith's treatment while at Quebec's Joliette Institution.
The tapes, shot three months before her death, reportedly show Smith being strapped to a gurney for several hours and denied tampons, injected with anti-psychotic drugs against her will and physically constrained with duct tape aboard an airplane during a prison transfer.
Falconer has argued the tapes will give the jury at an upcoming coroner's inquest into Smith's death a clearer idea of the teenager's state of mind leading up to her death.
Lawyers for the coroner argue that the videos do not need to be shown because this treatment was prior to her death.
The panel reserved its decision into the matter.
In the last 11 months of her life, Smith was transferred 17 times to prisons in Ontario, the Maritimes, the Prairies and Quebec due to bad behaviour, staff fatigue and overcrowding.
She spent the majority of her incarceration physically restrained in isolation cells.
The coroner's inquest is looking into the cause of her death and how to prevent similar deaths in the future.
It was originally only going to examine the 13-week period Smith spent in Ontario prisons but was expanded earlier this year to include the period she was held in federal custody.
Smith was only 15 when she was initially given a 90-day jail sentence for throwing crab apples at a postal worker in her hometown of Moncton, N.B. She continued to remain behind bars, as she racked up multiple charges while incarcerated.
A long-awaited yearlong inquest into Smith's death was supposed to start earlier this month but was postponed until the matter with the videos can be resolved. It is now slated to begin May 16 in Toronto.
linnguyen (at) postmedia.com
twitter.com/lindathu-nguyen
http://www.globalmaritimes.com/Ashley+Smith+case+Parents+Brunswick+teen+settles+wrongful+death+suit/4725654/story.html
Linda Nguyen, Postmedia News: Wednesday, May 4, 2011
TORONTO - The family of a New Brunswick teenager who strangled herself to death in an Ontario prison four years ago has settled a multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government, less than two weeks before a coroner's inquest into her death is set to get underway.
Nineteen-year-old Ashley Smith was found dead in a segregated prison cell at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., in October 2007. She had fatally choked herself with a piece of cloth around her neck.
The details of the settlement will not be released due to a confidentially agreement.
"The matter was satisfied to the satisfaction of the parties," said the Smith's family lawyer, Julian Falconer Wednesday.
The family had launched the lawsuit in July 2009, seeking $11 million in damages for the death of the troubled teenager.
According to the statement of claim, it had named 20 defendants including a number of prison guards, wardens, the Attorney General of Canada and the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
The lawsuit alleged Smith was unlawfully segregated for nearly a year and not helped even though she was deemed a suicide risk.
"Losing a daughter is a tragedy and would be difficult for any family," he added. "Losing her daughter have to fight this battle has been difficult for Coralee Smith. So closing this chapter is a relief."
The lawsuit had been settled last month but it was not discovered until this week.
On Monday, a three-justice panel heard arguments at a divisional court hearing into whether Ontario deputy coroner Dr. Bonita Porter erred by not including prison surveillance tapes of Smith's treatment while at Quebec's Joliette Institution.
The tapes, shot three months before her death, reportedly show Smith being strapped to a gurney for several hours and denied tampons, injected with anti-psychotic drugs against her will and physically constrained with duct tape aboard an airplane during a prison transfer.
Falconer has argued the tapes will give the jury at an upcoming coroner's inquest into Smith's death a clearer idea of the teenager's state of mind leading up to her death.
Lawyers for the coroner argue that the videos do not need to be shown because this treatment was prior to her death.
The panel reserved its decision into the matter.
In the last 11 months of her life, Smith was transferred 17 times to prisons in Ontario, the Maritimes, the Prairies and Quebec due to bad behaviour, staff fatigue and overcrowding.
She spent the majority of her incarceration physically restrained in isolation cells.
The coroner's inquest is looking into the cause of her death and how to prevent similar deaths in the future.
It was originally only going to examine the 13-week period Smith spent in Ontario prisons but was expanded earlier this year to include the period she was held in federal custody.
Smith was only 15 when she was initially given a 90-day jail sentence for throwing crab apples at a postal worker in her hometown of Moncton, N.B. She continued to remain behind bars, as she racked up multiple charges while incarcerated.
A long-awaited yearlong inquest into Smith's death was supposed to start earlier this month but was postponed until the matter with the videos can be resolved. It is now slated to begin May 16 in Toronto.
linnguyen (at) postmedia.com
twitter.com/lindathu-nguyen
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