Upon returning home from an extended trip to Costa Rica, Montreal resident Nick Fatouros learned that he was dead — or so the Quebec government thought.
Quebec’s Ministry of Justice stated in a letter its intention to collect money from the 34-year-old’s estate for a speeding ticket, Fatouros tells CTV News.
“I was laughing. I said, ‘Wow, that’s news to me,'” says Fatouros, who explains he was in the process of contesting a speeding ticket before leaving for Central America.
When attempts to reach the ministry proved futile, Fatouros hired lawyer William Korbatly to help him out.
“Sometimes, it happens to have some mistakes like this, but it’s really, really rare,” Korbatly tells the outlet, adding that if not handled quickly, the mistake could potentially snowball.
“It won’t only affect this traffic ticket, it would affect all of his, you know, succession and everything,” he says.
A ministry spokesperson has since contacted CTV News, explaining in an email that the mix-up was a case of “human error.”
“The Collector of Fines mistakenly used a letter template used to correspond with an estate rather than the one normally used to communicate with a defendant. We apologize for the situation,” the email said, before assuring, “An appropriate follow-up will be made with the citizen.”