Law professor leads review of class action policy

Windsor Law professor Jasminka Kalajdzic was one of two principal researchers on the Law Commission of Ontario’s class action project.

Law professor leads review of class action policy

Jul 22nd, 2019

A Windsor Law professor is one of two principal researchers of a report addressing class action, released July 17 by the Law Commission of Ontario.

Jasminka Kalajdzic noted that in addition to their own research, she and fellow investigator Catherine Piché of the Université de Montréal conducted 135 interviews and studied 30 written submissions to produce the first evidence-based and comprehensive review of class actions in Ontario since the enactment of the Class Proceedings Act (CPA) in 1993.

“We were committed from the outset to make this project consultative and non-partisan,” she says. “Our recommendations aim to improve the class action system as a whole and to promote its primary goals of access to justice, deterrence, and judicial efficiency.”

Entitled Class Actions: Objectives, Experience, and Reforms, the report makes 47 recommendations on a broad cross-section of issues, including the process for initiating a class action, certification, settlement approval and distribution, counsel fees, costs, reporting on class actions, and appeals.

Windsor Law alumnus Andrew Pinto (LLB 1993), chair of the Law Commission of Ontario, notes that class action lawsuits can have a significant impact on public policy, corporate conduct, and government behaviour.

“Class actions have become one of the most high-profile and far-reaching legal procedures in the Canadian justice system,” Pinto says. “The report’s 47 recommendations represent a necessary and important update to this very significant piece of legislation.”