Quebec Superior Court judge Janick Perreault recently rejected a class action suit launched by parents Stéphanie Bernard and Pierre André Fournier against more than 100 private schools in Montreal and the surrounding area, related to their closures during the COVID pandemic.

The plaintiffs are the parents of children who had attended Charles-Lemoyne International Academy in Longueuil. While the case was decided in the Longueuil division of Superior Court, the case affected schools on the island of Montreal, including Jewish, and English and French private schools.

The court document points out that the parents applied to launch a class action suit in July 2020, and this was allowed to proceed by Quebec Superior Court in July 2021. The suit was originally against 126 schools, but it was revised to 102 schools.

COVID was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, and the government of Quebec declared a public health emergency on March 13, including not allowing physical attendance in schools for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year.

The parents argued that the Longueuil school, and by extension the more than 100 others, “collected the full tuition fees stipulated in the educational services contract for the 2019-2020 school year.” They sought a partial refund, about 22 per cent down from the originally sought 31 per cent, on behalf of themselves and other parents, saying children were not given “full educational services.

“The plaintiffs are basing their claim on a reduction in the amount of socialization resulting from school closures, contrary to the custom and expectations of in-person instruction,” the court document says. The parents also claimed that socialization accounts for 80 per cent of in-person schooling.

The court ruled against the parents, saying the contracts involved with the schools were not “consumer contracts”, but “highly regulated educational services contracts governed by specific Quebec education laws,” so consumer protection rules do not apply in this case as they do with businesses.

The court also ruled there was no breach of contract, as the school closures were ordered by the Quebec government, and that the schools had no choice but to halt in-person teaching.

The judge added that that educational services were still provided online, including lessons, evaluations, and support. The decision also said that while socialization is part of a school’s mission in general, it is not an enforceable guarantee, and schools have to be able to be flexible in an emergency situation. It was found that the efforts of a school must be reasonable, and that there can not be a guarantee of perfection.

In terms of the class action, the judge found that different schools conducted online teaching in different ways, and thus different students had different experiences, and each student was not potentially harmed in the same way. The judge pointed out that each child could have been affected differently, in terms of their age, family situation, and special needs.

The judge also found that testimony from an expert called by the plaintiffs was very general and not related to specific facts about each of the schools named in the lawsuit. As well, while parents did complain about the quality of online teaching, the class action was not allowed to tackle that issue. The decision pointed out that children still received educational services and advanced to the next grade.

Finally, the parents “did not request the termination of their children’s educational services contracts.

“If they had, they would have received a proportional reduction in tuition fees. Although they, and the members of the group, had the option of terminating their contract with the schools, they chose not to exercise this right.”