Paul Miller explains how civil litigation is — and should be — a major force for public safety
Paul Miller, partner at Howie Sacks & Henry LLP, received a call from a U.S. lawyer about a 2024 murder that occurred in Ontario. The crime — like many other firearm-related incidents in the province — was committed using a gun trafficked over the border.
The U.S. lawyer, Jonathan Lowy, is the founder and president of Global Action on Gun Violence and special litigation advisor to Everytown Law. He has a long career advocating for greater gun control, including serving as chief counsel at the Brady Center, named in honour of President Reagan’s press secretary who was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt.
Lowy explained he viewed the shooting on Canadian soil as an in: an opportunity to challenge U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors, who south of the border operate under laws that provide them with near immunity from litigation. Miller was eager to join forces, noting it’s about sending a message.
These companies know their guns are going “everywhere and anywhere” — someone who purchases 28 guns from one dealer isn’t going hunting, he adds, and they’re aware they can easily be modified to serve essentially as automatic weapons — and there needs to be a greater sense of responsibility on the part of manufacturers and distributors.
“We want them to have a greater sense of responsibility,” Miller says. “They say, ‘well, it’s out our door so it’s not our problem anymore.’ We’re saying that actually, it is your problem.”
Change over compensation
Miller isn’t expecting smooth sailing, noting “there’s going to be a big fight over jurisdiction — there’s no doubt,” but he’s optimistic. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Miller’s career is defined by taking on cases that are less about compensation and more about advancing the common good.
He’s been drawn to these more complex cases since early in his career, when he served as a board member of a public interest law firm in the U.S. Watching that firm pursue real-world change shaped how he thinks about his own role to this day.
“I really believe that we who are privileged enough to be in law and work in this area have a responsibility for the social justice aspect,” Miller explains. “When our government doesn’t take care of certain things, the lawyers have to.”
He applies that same logic to his work at the firm. One example is his role of co-counsel for Canadian diplomats. An ongoing case since 2019 with no established precedent, the claim seeks compensation for Havana Syndrome, mysterious neurological injuries suffered in Cuba.
Another example is Howie Sacks & Henry’s B.C. class action against opioid manufacturers, on track to reach trial in 2028. The goal there, he says, is recovering money for governments to fund care for the people harmed, while also serving as a warning shot for manufacturers and distributors against assuming carte blanche to act with impunity once they know their products are causing deaths.
Miller also points to the firm’s work on Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752, where he served as lead counsel at trial, as the clearest example of his overarching philosophy. Howie Sacks & Henry and co-counsel Camp Fiorante Mogerman represented the families of 21 passengers killed when the flight was shot down in Iran in January 2020. The Ontario Superior Court ruled in the families’ favour, a decision upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Since the ruling, airlines have changed how they evaluate conflict-zone airspace before allowing flights through it. Miller recalls the joy he felt when airspace over the Middle East was shutdown on Oct. 7, an unprecedented event he attributes directly to the result they got in that case.
There’s also the Boeing 737 Max litigation arising from the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash. Howie Sacks & Henry are co-counsel in pursuing claims in Canada against the airline, alongside a parallel U.S. action against Boeing over the 737 Max 8. The drive behind the cases is to force changes in how the manufacturer handles safety failures.
The firm’s nursing home litigation niche — led by partner and certified elder law specialist Melissa Miller — handles cases that belong in the same category. Howie Sacks & Henry has served as lead counsel on nursing home negligence litigation described as the first of its kind in Canada, part of a broader firm practice that includes Melissa Miller’s advocacy work through Canadians4LTC and Lawyers4LTC.
It’s the same story with systemic sexual abuse. The hope is cases on that front will do more than settle past harm but make institutions such as churches, schools, health care facilities, and sports organizations safer for children going forward.
“Yes, you want to get compensation for families, but there are certain types of cases that you bring that have a larger impact,” Miller says of his career efforts in the name of the public good, adding that “you want to cause systemic change within these areas.”
Unveiling a Public Safety Litigation practice
Firearm cases are the latest claims to fall into this category of litigation, prompting the firm to launch a dedicated Public Safety litigation practice. Miller describes a firm that champions its lawyers’ causes and backs these kinds of cases wholeheartedly, “supporting these initiatives because they have that same vision of what we should be doing.”
Now, Miller is keen to move forward on the novel gun trafficking case. Gun violence is at epidemic proportions in North America, and if changes are made to the way gun manufacturers design and sell their guns, it will go a long way in stopping the senseless killing of people on the streets.
The argument is that when a firearm is purchased, only the person who bought it should be able to use it. Miller points to existing fingerprint ID technology as a way to establish those guardrails. Think of the lives that could be saved not only by eliminating the ability for bad actors to use trafficked guns, but curtailing even accidental shootings, such as when a child is playing with a parent’s gun.
Miller argues the technology would close a gap that already exists in Canadian law: anyone with a qualifying criminal conviction is already barred from buying a gun here, so locking a weapon to its registered buyer would keep it out of the wrong hands even if it ends up on the street.
“It’s in the public safety; that’s common-sense gun control,” Miller says. “That type of technology isn’t restricting someone’s right to a gun; it’s restricting someone who shouldn't have a gun's ability to use one. That’s what this is all about, forcing those types of changes, because they can’t be held accountable in the United States.”
As for the case in front of him currently, Miller classifies the progress as “slow walking.” The duo has since filed a notice of action, and the claim has been sent out, but the firm intends to hold off serving it for as long as six months while an active police investigation continues.
Since agreeing to take on the case, there have been multiple other shootings. The police officer killed in Toronto is presumed to have been shot with another of the trafficked weapons, a connection Lowy and Miller are also looking into. They’ve identified five or six other potential cases being investigating in parallel and while he isn’t expecting to open any floodgates, this is truly an area where every little bit helps. A handful of successful cases over several years, Miller says, would be enough to force change.
“No one’s done this before, it gives us a purpose to do it, and I love that about this work,” he adds. “We’ll see how this goes.”
This article was produced in partnership with Howie Sacks & Henry’s
