In our 2024 edition of Looking Forward, we review notable class action developments from the past year and consider what recent trends in the law might tell us about what to expect in the years ahead....more
The Ontario Superior Court recently emphasized the need, in a negligent design claim, for evidence on the product from a qualified design expert, even in the context of a certification motion....more
Exclusion clauses are a common feature of agreements of purchase and sale and other commercial contracts. While often subject to negotiation, parties sometimes proceed with standard form exclusion clauses that may inject...more
An Ontario Superior Court Judge has refused to certify a class action against the manufacturer of the handgun used to carry out the 2018 mass shooting on Danforth Avenue in Toronto. The plaintiffs brought their claim on...more
Early 2022 decisions interpreting Ontario’s new mandatory dismissal for delay regime were glad tidings for defendants, suggesting the regime would be strictly applied. However, over the course of 2022, the pendulum swung in...more
We begin with an update on a trilogy of privacy class actions appeals in which plaintiffs sought, unsuccessfully, to expand the tort of intrusion upon seclusion.
Next, we canvass the various approaches of Ontario courts...more
In January 2022, Justice Belobaba (one of four judges on the Toronto Class Actions List) dismissed an action for delay under section 29.1 of Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act, 1992. Justice Belobaba’s decision in Bourque v...more
Nearly 2 years after the launch of more than 30 proposed class actions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic upended the Canadian class action landscape, pandemic-related class actions risk, and ongoing litigation appear to have...more
An Ontario Superior Court judge has accepted, in a preliminary decision in Price v Smith & Wesson Corp, 2021 ONSC 1114, that gun manufacturers may have civil liability in Canada for losses caused by mass shootings when...more
In November 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in 1688782 Ontario Inc. v Maple Leaf Foods Inc. This is an important decision clarifying the analytical approach to the duty of care analysis in negligence...more
Instability and uncertainty were the two constants in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic uprooted social norms and challenged businesses. The long range impact of that instability and uncertainty remains to be seen. For different...more
The Supreme Court of Canada has clarified the scope of manufacturers’ potential liability under the law of negligence to the retailers of their products for “pure economic losses”—lost profits, lost sales, and reputational...more
On October 30, 2020, a six-judge majority of the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed, in Asselin v Desjardins Cabinet de services financiers inc, 2020 SCC 30, that a class action concerning allegedly misleading investment...more
A small group of former Eritrean workers has won a narrow, but important, preliminary victory at the Supreme Court of Canada in a British Columbia lawsuit that alleges human rights abuses against a Canadian company operating...more
On December 20, 2018, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in the Rana Plaza Class Action (Das v George Weston Limited, 2018 ONCA 1053) affirming the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s decision to dismiss the...more
12/24/2018
/ Appeals ,
Bangladesh ,
Canada ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Claims Limitations Period ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Governance ,
Corporate Social Responsibility ,
Dismissals ,
Duty of Care ,
Manufacturers ,
Negligence ,
Third-Party Service Provider ,
Workplace Injury
Companies in Canada or doing business with Canadians beware. The Ontario Court of Appeal has held that Ontario courts can take jurisdiction in class actions over plaintiffs who are not Canadian, do not live or work here, and...more
On July 5, 2017, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released a 129-page decision in the Rana Plaza class action (Das v George Weston Limited, 2017 ONSC 4129), a proposed class action brought in Ontario on behalf of...more
A new statutory regime governing international commercial arbitration came into effect in Ontario in March 2017, with the International Commercial Arbitration Act, 2017, SO 2017, c 2, replacing the International Commercial...more
Non-Canadian companies: welcome to the Canadian class action party. In recent years, Canadians have increasingly begun to recognize and actively manage the major business risk posed by class actions, as more and more...more
On August 26, 2015, Justice Leitch held that the Ontario court does not have jurisdiction over foreign class members in Airia Brands Inc v Air Canada. Counsel on both sides of the class action bar should take note. For...more
More than ever before, foreign companies with websites accessible by Canadians should consider whether their online activities—even mere data gathering—put them at risk of being subject to the jurisdiction of a Canadian...more
7/8/2015
The Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision today which furthers existing law requiring experts in court proceedings to give fair, objective and non-partisan opinion evidence. A number of cases stood for the proposition...more
In the recent decision of Letang v Hertz Canada Ltd, Justice Myers refused to adjourn a trial date despite the last-minute production of documents, decrying “old brain thinking” that has thwarted timely access to Canada’s...more
Today, Canadians are mediating their disputes in record numbers. One partial explanation for this phenomenon is that mediation purports to keep discussions between parties confidential, traditionally backstopped by settlement...more
Canadian courts have long struggled with the tort of unlawful interference with economic relations. This struggle has generated significant ambiguity in the case law—even the tort’s name was unsettled. However, on January 31,...more