Class Actions
A class action allows one person, often called the representative plaintiff or class plaintiff, to commence a legal proceeding in the courts on behalf of himself or herself, as well as all of the other people who fit into the proposed class. For example, the class may be made up of employees, pensioners, shareholders, purchasers of a product, consumers or residents of a certain town or city. This means that a single person or small group of persons can start a class action on behalf of hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who are similarly situated.
Ontario has had class action legislation since 1993. Other provinces have also recently passed such legislation. Cases can be brought on behalf of people living across Canada, or even outside of Canada.
Class actions allow for large numbers of people to have access to the courts in situations where the case would be too expensive or too complex for one person to sue on their own.
Our firm is experienced in handling complex class actions. Lawyers at the firm are recognized by Lexpert as leading practitioners in the area and in related areas of law.
Koskie Minsky and its lawyers have been involved in class actions involving Indian residential schools, environmental claims, securities and shareholder misrepresentation, product liability, consumer protection, and many other types of cases, some of which were the first of their kind in Canada. We have achieved recoveries for class members in many of these cases. We also act as consulting counsel for plaintiffs and defendants in class actions.
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