Class Action Defence Class Action Defence

Wellman v. TELUS: Ontario Court of Appeal clarifies the impact of arbitration clauses on class proceedings

In Wellman v. TELUS Communications Company, 2017 ONCA 433, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal of an order denying a motion to partially...

Class counsel fees and other obstacles to class action settlements in Québec

In recent years, a considerable number of Québec class actions have been authorized (certified) for the sole purpose of approving a settlement. The...

Calling John Doe: Can a class action proceed with an anonymous representative plaintiff?

Can you bring a class action without publicly identifying a representative plaintiff? In the past few years, class action claimants in Canada and the...

Canadian government suspends CASL private right of action

The Canadian federal government has announced that it has suspended the coming into force of the private right of action under Canada’s anti-spam...

Privacy class actions, by the numbers

The past five years have seen an increased awareness of the risk of privacy class actions. This time period coincides with the recognition by various...

Ontario Court of Appeal declines to grant retroactive relief in securities class action

In its recent decision in Pennyfeather v. Timminco Limited, the Court of Appeal for Ontario declined to retroactively relieve the plaintiff from the...

Ontario court stick handles around “excessively over-pleaded” class action

A class action will not be certified unless it is a fair, efficient and manageable way to resolve proposed common issues. That principle was recently...

CHAMPIX claims settled for $273 million in U.S., discontinued without costs in Canada

Notwithstanding a large settlement of similar litigation in the United States, the Ontario class proceeding Parker v. Pfizer Canada Inc. was...

Ontario court finds representative proceeding to be time-barred despite being commenced within the limitation period

In Caetano v Quality Meat Packers, 2017 ONSC 1199, Justice Belobaba of the Ontario Superior Court recently had opportunity to consider whether two...

Converting an individual action to a class proceeding

In a recent decision from the British Columbia Supreme Court, the Court considered an issue of first impression in that province; i.e., whether an...