Quebec woman who stopped for ducks, causing fatal crash, loses appeal

The Quebec Court of Appeal has rejected Emma Czornobaj’s appeal of the verdicts in which she was found guilty of causing the deaths of a father and daughter while she tried to gather a group of ducklings off a highway.

On June 27, 2010, Czornobaj, 28, was driving a Honda Civic on Highway 30 in Candiac when she decided to stop her car and tried to gather ducklings she spotted on the shoulder of the roadway.

She stopped in the left lane of the highway. André Roy, 49, was riding his motorcycle with his daughter Jessie, 16, seated behind him on the Harley Davidson. The motorcycle crashed into the back of the Civic. Roy was killed by the impact while his daughter suffered fatal injuries after she was flung several metres by the crash.

Czornobaj was convicted by a jury, in 2014, on charges of criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

The Court of Appeal heard arguments on an appeal of the verdicts and the sentence Czornobaj received, but on Thursday, it issued its decision rejecting the appeal of both. The Court of Appeal determined that even if Czornobaj remains convinced she took steps to reduce the risk involved in parking her car in the left-hand lane of a highway the jury determined another reasonable person could have felt otherwise.

All three of the judges who heard the appeal agreed on the decision. Czornobaj will probably have to begin serving her 90-day prison term soon. She was sentenced to serve her prison term on weekends. Czornobaj was not appealing the prison term itself but the fact that the judge who presided over her trial, Éliane Perrault, also issued an order that she not be allowed to have a drivers permit for ten years. The Court of Appeal decided that a 10-year prohibition from driving for Czornobaj compensates for the relatively low prison term she received and was therefore suited specifically to her case.