A Toronto man has filed a statement of claim to the Ontario Superior Court seeking $5 million CAD in damages against Airbnb after being part of an April shooting.
Sean McCann was shot on April 27th, 2019 during a party that was hosted at the Airbnb’s residence. His statement of claim alleges that “Airbnb allowed the sparsely furnished home to be promoted and rented through its website when it knew, or ought to have known that these homes are commonly used by guests and renters for parties that turn violent.”
McCann’s lawyer, Michael Smitiuch, of Smitiuch Injury Law, indicated that the lawsuit is being made in the hopes of getting Airbnb to be more liable and protect the safety of its renters.
“While Airbnb operates in the online world, that does not give it impunity in the real world where people are getting shot and killed at its house parties,” the lawyer said in a press release. “It’s about time Airbnb made protecting public safety a business priority.”
More recently, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky, said that the company was going to be banning ‘party houses’ following a shooting at a rental home on Halloween night that killed five people in California.
Chesky tweeted at the time that the company was going to expand manual screenings of reservations and will remove users who don’t comply with the policies banning parties.
Source: Smitiuch Injury Law
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
