Judge certifies class-action lawsuit over COVID-19 outbreak at Manitoba care home

A judge has certified a class-action lawsuit against the former operator of a Winnipeg personal care home that dealt with an extended COVID-19 outbreak.

Eddie Calisto-Tavares said goodbye to her dad Manuel Calisto more than five years ago. She holds a photo album of him close to her heart.

“Whenever I need to have a little bit of courage, I come and I look at my dad,” Calisto-Tavares told CTV News.

Manuel Calisto was one of 56 residents who died at Maples Personal Care Home during a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility that started in October 2020.

She said her 88-year-old dad spent his final days in isolation.

“It was more security guards than nurses, health-care aides, the people that were supposed to be there looking after them,” Calisto-Tavares said.

Now, a class-action lawsuit against the former operator of a Winnipeg personal care home where dozens of Manitobans died during an extended COVID-19 outbreak will go forward.

Court of King’s Bench Associate Chief Justice Shane Perlmutter certified the lawsuit on Feb. 2, 2026 against Revera Inc. the former operator of Maples Personal Care Home, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) and Shared Health.

Darryl Singer, head of the class-action group at the Toronto based Diamond and Diamond Lawyers, called the justice’s certification an encouraging step forward.

“We’re very excited with that outcome,” Singer said on Monday morning.

“I can tell you that when I came to Winnipeg to argue the case, I went into court very confident. We felt strongly about this case and about the law favoring us in terms of certification. You really just never know until you get the judge’s decision.”

Singer said his team was contacted in 2021 by Eddie Calisto-Tavares and Lawrence Lewsey, the representative plaintiffs for the class-action.

According to the lawsuit documents, Calisto-Tavares and Lewseyare the son and daughter of two former residents of Maples Personal Care Home who brought the action forward under the Fatal Accidents and Trustee acts.

Their claims concern events between Oct. 18, 2020 and Jan. 12, 2021, during an alleged COVID-19 outbreak at the personal care home, which the suit claims caused many residents to test positive and later die of complications of the virus.

“Issues that came to light during that pandemic, they were there before,” Calisto-Tavares said.

“Those cracks were there.”

According to the documents, 157 residents tested positive and approximately 56 residents died during the outbreak period.

The plaintiffs allege there were several failures by Revera, namely that the company did not adequately plan for or respond to the outbreak.

CTV News Winnipeg has reached out to Revera for comment.

Both Shared Health and the WRHA declined to comment as the matter as it before the courts.

While Singer couldn’t provide an exact number, he said the class-action lawsuit is currently representing between 300 to 500 people.

“We represent not only the people who got COVID at the Maples and survived, but we also represent their immediate family members, as well with respect to the people that contracted COVID and passed away. We represent both their estates and various family members.”

He said the lawsuit aims to achieve two things. The first - financial compensation.

“Money doesn’t make everything better,” Singer said.

“It’s certainly in the case of our two representative plaintiffs, Eddie and Lawrence, it’s certainly not going to bring back their parents by any means, but that’s how our system works.”

The second goal - behaviour modification. Singer hopes the suit will change how Maples Personal Care Home and Revera manages, prepares, and protects from future outbreaks that may occur.

He said a class-action lawsuit of this nature is not unique in Canada given the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. Singer’s law firm is also handling an identical case against a number of nursing home operators in Ontario, including the parent company of Maples, as well as in Alberta.

“It is tragic. This story that came out of Maples, it was right across the country during 2020 and 2021, so it’s a tragic situation. All of these cases together, hopefully are going to force the nursing home operators to deal with these sorts of things differently going forward.”

Calisto-Tavares hopes she can honour her dad’s life later this year.

She plans to visit her dad’s former Portuguese home with her daughter – walking the 124-kilometer Camino in his memory.

“I’m walking with my dad in mind, lighting candles along the way,” she said.

“I’m taking a rock from here, and I just want to deposit it and let go of my burdens so that I can get past the grief of the last five years.”