2009

7 November 2009 Farmers to Sue CN, CPR Over Hopper Car Costs A string of Federal Government Trudeau hoppers.     Regina Saskatchewan - Four Prairie farms have filed a proposal for a new class-action suit against Canada's two main railways over what have been ruled excessive costs built into farmers' grain freight bills.   Regina lawyer Tony Merchant, well-known in class-action circles, filed a statement of claim for the farms 15 Oct 2009 in Court of Queen's Bench in Regina.   His representative plaintiffs are Coutts, Alta. farmers Boyd and Colleen Bianchi, George Hickie of Melville, Sask., John Jackson of Sinclair, Man., and Renova Holdings, a grain operation at Dawson Creek, B.C.   The suit follows a path similar to a proposed class action filed against the railways and federal government by representative plaintiff Gordon Wallace, a farmer from Unity, Sask., in late 2008.   Both suits stem from a February 2008 ruling by the Canadian Transportation Agency that substantially lowered the maximum annual revenue Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) are allowed to keep for moving Prairie grain.   The CTA ruling, upheld in November 2008 by the Federal Court of Appeal, found that the railways' costs for maintenance of grain hopper cars, previously "embedded" in both railways' federally-capped grain freight revenue at $4,379 per car, were $1,371 per car, the farmers said in their statement of claim.   In the 2007-08 crop year, the railways' claimed costs for hopper car maintenance "led CN and (CPR) to receive, at the expense of class members, an additional $72.2 million," the new claim stated.   Where Wallace's suit also names federal transport regulators and the federal transport minister, alleging a lack of scrutiny and due diligence at the federal level, Merchant's representative farmers' claims are only against CN and CPR.   Merchant's documents don't claim any specific dollar amount, but do allege that going back to 1983, CN and CPR, acting in "an egregious, high-handed and oppressive manner... wrongfully overcharged farmers by more than $1 billion for transporting (the farmers') grain."   The suit claims "restitution of benefits wrongfully conferred" on CN and CPR, which presumably would start the dollar amount claimed at over $1 billion. It also claims "compensatory and aggravated damages" and "exemplary and punitive damages", plus pre-judgment interest and whatever other relief the court sees fit to order.   If approved as a class action, the suit's proposed "class" would include anyone who paid either CN or CPR to haul grain to port from the Prairies between 1 Aug 1983 and 31 Jul 2010. That marks the end of the current crop year and is Merchant's proposed "opt-out" deadline for anyone not interested in being part of the "class."   According to the Reuters news agency in an article Thursday, CN and CPR spokespersons have both declined comment.

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