Patients and their families have filed a $50-million proposed class-action lawsuit against an Ontario hospital where 177 patients contracted C. difficile, according to one of their lawyers.

Of the 177, 91 people have since died, although not all the deaths have been linked directly to the outbreak of Clostridium difficile between May 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2007, at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington.

Lawyer Harvey Strosberg alleges on his website that the hospital was not properly cleaned, maintained and disinfected.

C. difficile bacteria are highly contagious and infect the intestines, causing symptoms including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and fever.

An independent study conducted earlier this year and released in May by the University Health Network in Toronto confirmed the bacteria killed 30 patients at Joseph Brant Memorial and contributed to the deaths of 46 others.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday, but a class action needs court certification before it can proceed. None of the allegations in the C. difficile statement of claim has been proven in court.

Claimant alleges leaving the hospital saved her life

According to the Hamilton Spectator, the claimants include Pat Sullivan, who alleges she entered the hospital for knee surgery, caught C. difficile and survived only because she checked herself out of hospital.

Dorothy Elliott, another claimant, alleges her husband Jack died after getting infected with C. difficile during knee-replacement surgery at the hospital. Elliott and her daughter went public with his story, travelling to the Ontario legislature to hand then Health Minister George Smitherman Jack's picture.

The hospital has not publicly responded to the proposed class action.

In May, the hospital said it hadn't had a new case of C. difficile since April 15. Officials said patient rooms are now wiped clean twice a day, and the hospital has spent $1 million to hire cleaning staff and switch to more effective disinfectants.

Quebec grappled with C. difficile outbreaks in 2006, when 16 people died during two outbreaks at a hospital east of Montreal and 19 people died at a Quebec City hospital.

Other class actions settled

Strosberg, based in Windsor, Ont., has teamed up with Hamilton lawyer Stanley Tick to launch the proposed lawsuit against Joseph Brant. Both lawyers have been involved in high-profile class actions before.

Strosberg represented patients who contracted hepatitis C from transfusions of tainted blood in the 1980s in Canada. The lawsuit resulted in a $1.5-billion settlement from the federal and Ontario governments and is considered the largest sum ever paid to settle a personal injury claim in Canada.

Tick was involved in the Walkerton class action, which saw all 5,000 residents of the Ontario town of Walkerton and some of their visitors paid $2,000 each after their water became contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

A total of seven people died and 2,300 became ill eight years ago during Canada's worst outbreak of E. coli contamination.