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| Tamara Jemuovic, 1st runner-up of the Miss World Canada 2013 beauty pageant is suing the organization’s CEO for unpaid prizes. |
The second-place winner of the Miss World Canada 2013 beauty pageant is suing the Vancouver-based organization for $25,000 worth of unpaid prizes and general damages.
Tamara Jemuovic claims in her lawsuit to be heard Friday that she won 1st Runner Up at the Miss World Canada pageant held in May 2013 at the River Rock Show Theatre in Richmond.
She also won People’s Choice Award and was awarded a number of prizes, including two one-year gym memberships, two luxury trips to Las Vegas and $750 cash prize, which the University of Toronto student claims she could have used.
She claims in her civil lawsuit that she never received all her prizes.
“I felt I was taken advantage of,” Jemuovic, 21, said in an interview before the trial Friday in Richmond provincial court.
She said she repeatedly contacted Miss World Canada and its CEO Ike Lalji, questioning why she never received her prizes.
Initially, she said, she was told the prizes were forthcoming.
“I waited and waited and then I never heard back from them,” Jemuovic said.
Tamara Jemuovic
She was eventually told that she was in breach of her contract because she had competed in another beauty contest in August of 2013.
“Generally, we feel she breached the agreement by being involved in another beauty pageant,” said Dean Davison, lawyer for Miss World Canada.
He said the plaintiff should not have taken part in another beauty pageant for one year.
“I didn’t breach the agreement,” Jemuovic said. “The agreement said I couldn’t compete in another beauty pageant before May 2013, when the Miss World Canada pageant was.”
She added: “I campaigned so much for this pageant. I won the people’s choice award.”
She also claims she raised a total of $5,000 for the Variety Children’s Charity and raised another $13,000 for another charity.
Miss World Canada donated $67,233 last year to the Variety charity.
Jemuovic said she finally got fed up with waiting and filed her lawsuit. She is seeking a total of $25,000 in damages, plus court costs, including $8,000 for loss of prizes, $17,000 for general damages and loss of benefits, and court ordered interest from May 9, 2013. Davison added Miss World Canada believes the plaintiff’s claim is inflated.
Miss World Canada will be held May 16 this year in Vancouver and includes a welcoming letter to contestants from Premier Christy Clark on the Miss World Canada website.
Source: Metronews.ca, Vancouver, 4/24/2015