Another expensive court loss for anti-vaccine mandate lawyer

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A Toronto lawyer and opponent of COVID-19 public-health measures has suffered another in a string of legal defeats, with an Ontario court tossing out his “outlandish” lawsuit over vaccine mandates and ordering his clients to pay $190,000 in legal costs.

The statement of claim filed by lawyer Rocco Galati challenged the firing or suspension of hundreds of Ontario health-care workers who refused to get vaccinated against the virus.

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But it also accused governments and hospitals of promoting a “false” pandemic, committing crimes against humanity and deliberately causing harm to Ontarians with its anti-COVID measures. COVID shots were not vaccines but scientific experimentation, the suit alleged.

Two courts in B.C. and two federal courts had already quashed similar Galati lawsuits, noted Justice Markus Koehnen in a strongly worded decision released last month.

The statement of claim “is so outlandish and so far outside of the spectrum of what is reasonable that there is no legitimate public interest in its pursuit,” Koehnen wrote.

“While the interests of a free and democratic society may warrant leeway with respect to the pursuit of unconventional claims at the outset, when such claims continue to be pursued after being struck out by four courts, they amount to an abuse of public resources.”

Koehnen did say the 473 plaintiffs could file amended statements of claim that focused on the facts of each individual’s case and left out accusations of vast conspiracies and crimes against humanity. A former client of Galati’s did just that after retaining another lawyer, and the judge approved her new lawsuit.

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Koehnen also said allegations that certain public-health measures were wrong-headed essentially pit one scientific opinion against another and should be contested elsewhere.

“There may be a legitimate debate about whether public health measures could have been more effective,” he said. “That … is better conducted in the form of a ‘lessons-learned’ inquiry by responsible scientists and public health authorities than it is in this action”

“I have the distinct impression (the claim’s) object is not to vindicate the employment rights of the plaintiffs so much as it is to mount a political crusade in which the court will be used as a grandstand to conduct an inquiry into the effectiveness of vaccines and the effectiveness of government measures.”

Vaccine mandates – long since rescinded – required immunization for air travel, using some public services and working in certain jobs. Studies have shown that vaccines initially prevented as many as 90 per cent of COVID infections. They were less effective at stopping spread of the virus’s Omicron variant, but still helped prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death, research has indicated. But opponents mounted vigorous protests, calling the mandates a violation of basic human rights.

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Galati could not be reached for comment on the new ruling by deadline.

The lawyer built a reputation during the pandemic as a fiery opponent of the public-health response to the virus, which killed more than 60,000 Canadians and packed intensive-care units with gravely ill patients. He has called protective face coverings “slave-trade masks” and other public-health measures “vicious fraud.”

But his crusade against those measures has repeatedly hit a judicial brick wall.

As well as the cases in B.C. and federal courts, he represented two Ontario doctors in a libel suit against doctors, journalists and scientists who had criticized anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown comments made by one of them. A judge threw out that lawsuit and ordered the clients to pay over $1 million in legal costs to the defendants. In response, one of the doctors sued Galati himself. He was also ordered last year to pay $130,000 in costs to more moderate anti-mandate activists after his libel suit against them was struck down.

In the latest case, Galati represented nurses, doctors and other health-care workers who had been fired, suspended or had their hospital privileges revoked because they did not get a COVID vaccine. The defendants were 59 hospitals, other publicly funded health organizations and the provincial government.

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Koehnen said the statement of claim could not go ahead in part because of a jurisdictional issue. Those workers covered by union contracts had to first challenge the discipline actions through the labour arbitration process; doctors whose privileges were ended have their own non-court appeal process they have to exhaust first before going to court, said the judge.

The lawsuit alleged that a provincial directive around vaccination of health-care workers violated protections in section 7 of the Charter of Rights by requiring workers to get immunized as a condition of employment. But Koehnen noted that the directive only said health-care organizations had to set up vaccination policies, not that they should fire employees who refused the shots. The specific actions of individual hospitals were labour-relations matters, he said.

As well, none of the organizations actually forced employees to be vaccinated; workers still had the right to refuse, and face the consequences if they did, said Koehnen.

“Section 7 does not protect the right to practice a profession,” he said.

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The judge rejected as well allegations in the lawsuit that the defendants were part of a conspiracy, intimidated employees and purposely inflicted mental anguish.

The statement of claim said that the “predominant purpose” of the province and hospitals was to “cause injury” to health care workers like those in the case.

“It strains all credulity to accept that the premier of Ontario, a number cabinet ministers and 54 non-governmental defendants somehow conspired to concoct a plan to declare a ‘false pandemic’ all for the predominant purpose of harming the plaintiffs,” wrote Koehnen.

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