Interview with Allan Hutchinson: Legal Advocacy and Tragedy in Light of Neville-Lake v. Muzzo

Last year, TheCourt.ca posted an article discussing the fatal impaired driving incident that resulted in the death of all three of Jennifer and Edward Neville-Lake’s children. Daniel, Harrison and Milly were all under the age of ten. Jennifer’s father Gary—the children’s grandfather—was also killed in the crash. The sole survivors were their grandmother and great-grandmother, along with the drunk driver of the other vehicle, Marco Muzzo.

The article made a prediction on how the now-convicted Marco Muzzo would fair in a contested bail hearing, in light of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in R v St. Cloud, 2015 SCC 27. Muzzo, represented by Edward Greenspan, pled guilty to six charges, including multiple counts of impaired driving causing death. On March 29, 2016, Muzzo was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He will only be eligible for parole after serving three years of his sentence.

September 27, 2016 marked exactly one year since the crash that left the Neville-Lake family completely decimated. The question ‘why?’ remains unanswered as mother, father, and extended relatives struggle to come to terms with the permanence of their loss and how to move forward in the face of an unknown future.

With the criminal proceedings now complete, the next legal chapter has begun. News outlets across the country have turned to covering the civil suit filed by the victims’ family against Marco Muzzo. Muzzo is being personally sued, along with the billion-dollar, family-operated corporation that allegedly owned the vehicle he was driving at the time of the crash.

In this post, TheCourt.ca continues its coverage of the Neville-Lake vs. Muzzo saga. We sit down with Professor Allan Hutchinson, a seasoned civil litigator and Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, to discuss civil proceedings in tragic incidents and what we might expect the result to be as the Neville-Lake family seeks a new form of justice.

Watch TheCourt.ca interview civil litigation expert, Professor Alan Hutchinson of Osgoode Hall Law School, in this short, pioneering 8-minute first for TheCourt.ca.