A proposed class action lawsuit accuses the federal and B.C. governments of keeping property owners in the dark amid the Cowichan Tribes Aboriginal title ruling.

The lawsuit — filed in B.C. Supreme Court — appears to be the first separate civil suit to emerge from a groundbreaking decision that found that Aboriginal title co-exists with so-called fee simple title on about 150 pieces of private property in Richmond, B.C.

The proposed class action alleges t he federal and B.C. governments failed to “properly defend the rights of property owners” caught up in Justice Barbara Young's ruling, which awarded Quw’utson (Cowichan) Nation Aboriginal title to between 300 and 325 hectares of land just east of the Massey Tunnel, where the nation once had a traditional village.

The decision has

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