9 women suing Gilbert Rozon close to $14M for alleged sexual assault
Nine women are claiming almost $14M in a civil lawsuit against the founder of the Just For Laughs festival, Gilbert Rozon, alleging sexual assault. The assaults are said to have occurred from the 1980s to early 2000s.
“[It’s] yet another chapter in the saga against Gilbert Rozon that dates back to 2017 when the #MeToo movement hit Quebec,” said Sophie Gagnon, executive director of Juripop.
“There were 14 women who filed complaints with the police, but out of these 14 cases, only one moved forward and ended up in an acquittal of Rozon in 2020,” she explained. “In parallel to these criminal proceedings, a group of women that went by the name of Les Courageuses filed a class action lawsuit against Rozon and the class action was denied by the court of appeal, which also wrote in its ruling that the plaintiffs could move forward with individual claims, which is what nine of the 14 women did… these actions were joined in one single trial that started [December 9, 2024].”
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Time limit abolished
The assaults allegedly occurred from the 1980s to early 2000s and the trials became possible when the three-year limit for complaints was changed in 2015.
“Let’s think of men who were sexually abused in their childhood, it takes them an average of 40 years to go forward and speak about what they lived,” said Gagnon. “The time limit was completely abolished in 2020, so now there is no time limit, victims can file a civil claim whenever they wish to do so.”
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Gagnon said that although it’s an improvement in access to justice for victims, it doesn’t mean that the claims will easily be won.
“Sexual assaults are crimes of intimacy that usually have happened in closed doors, between only two individuals, so the evidence is usually only testimonies from the parties involved.” said Gagnon. “Time has an impact on memory and we are seeing this in the Rozon file and attorneys for Gilbert Rozon, in their cross examinations, are really trying to demonstrate that the victim’s memories have faded.”
Rozon’s lawyers will also challenge the constitutionality of the abolished time limit, arguing that the passage of time is a burden to the defendants as they have less evidence to defend themselves.
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“They’ve also announced in their opening statement that they believe Quebec was in search of their own Harvey Weinstein,” said Gagnon.
“He also uses as an argument the fact that a lot of these women have maintained contact with him and some of them continued to work with him after the alleged assault.”
The civil trial is public, which makes it an especially ‘challenging’ moment for the plaintiffs, according to Gagnon.
“All of these trials obviously are difficult for all parties involved because we are talking about trauma. We are talking about lives that are or will be severely affected by the mere happening, but also the outcome of these trials.”
