Class actions are an ever-more common means for groups of people to fight for compensation for damages and frequently made the news in 2019. Here’s how they work.
Class-action lawsuits allow groups of people to seek justice against a defendant who is accused of causing loss or harm to others through product liability, privacy breaches, consumer protection issues, environmental accidents, mass personal injury, institutional abuse, and labour and employment issues.
In Canada, class actions were first codified in Quebec in the 1970s, with Ontario following in 1993. Now, all provinces except P.E.I. have a class action procedure. Class actions are expensive to litigate, so lawyers have to believe in the merits of a case, be confident it meets the requirements to be certified as a class action, and that its potential compensation is worth pursuing the lawsuit.
Lawyers often pick a compensation dollar figure the class is seeking out of the air, says Kalajdzic. “It must be larger than what the plaintiffs could reasonably get at trial, because procedurally, you can’t get more at trial than what you asked for. But at the early stages, they don’t have all the information needed to really come up with a solid number. So it’s usually set really high at the outset.
“It was apparent there was an information gap. The size of class actions means it’s impossible for the lawyers involved to give one-on-one personal advice to everyone who needs it.”“It’s really gratifying to see the number of individuals who are contacting us for assistance. We’ve already been approached by organizations and law firms to consider legal interventions on appeal cases.
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