Class Proceedings

Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. They have been employed over the past twenty-five years to overcome barriers to justice for those who would otherwise have no recourse to the courts. First proposing a conceptualization of access to justice that moves beyond mere access to a court procedure, leading expert Jasminka Kalajdzic then methodically assesses survey data and case studies to determine how class action practice fulfills or falls short of its objectives. Class Actions in Canada is a timely exploration of the evolution of collective litigation in Canada.

In this inspiring history of a union, labour historian Andy Hanson delves deep into the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and how it evolved from two deeply divided unions to one of the province’s most united and powerful voices for educators. Today’s teacher is under constant pressure to raise students’ test scores, while the rise of neoliberalism in Canada has systematically stripped our education system of funding and support. But educators have been fighting back with decades of fierce labour action, from a landmark province-wide strike in the 1970s, to record-breaking front-line organizing against the Harris government and the Common Sense Revolution, to present-day picket lines and bargaining tables. Hanson follows the making of elementary teachers in Ontario as a distinct class of white-collar, public-sector workers who awoke in the last quarter of the twentieth century to the power of their collective strength.

"The Ontario Class Proceedings Act, 1992 represented a major innovation in civil procedure. Suzanne Chiodo’s book ... looks at the origins of representative proceedings in equity, the rise of modern-day class actions around the world (particularly in the United States and Quebec), and at the debates about the Ontario legislation. The book presents an ... analysis of the political and social influences that shaped this momentous legal change. It explains for the first time how the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee Report in 1990 pulled together so many divergent interests where previous attempts had failed."--Provided by publisher.

Complete with a state-by-state analysis of the ways in which the class action rules differ from the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, this comprehensive guide provides practitioners with an understanding of the intricacies of a class action lawsuit. Multiple authors contributed to the book, mainly 12 top litigators at the premiere law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski, L.L.P.

Economic activity is more globally integrated than ever before, but so is the scope of corporate misconduct. As more and more people across the world are affected by such malfeasance, the differences in legal redress have become increasingly visible. This transparency has resulted in a growing convergence towards an American model of robust private enforcement of the law, including the class-action lawsuit. This handbook brings together scholars from nearly two dozen countries to describe and assess the class-action procedure (or its equivalent) in their respective countries and, where possible, to offer empirical data on these systems. At the same time, the work presents a variety of multidisciplinary perspectives on class actions, from economics to philosophy, making this handbook an essential resource to academics, lawyers, and policymakers alike.

Since the 1960s, the class action lawsuit has been a powerful tool for holding businesses accountable. Yet years of attacks by corporate America and unfavorable rulings by the Supreme Court have left its future uncertain. In this book, Brian T. Fitzpatrick makes the case for the importance of class action litigation from a surprising political perspective: an unabashedly conservative point of view. Conservatives have opposed class actions in recent years, but Fitzpatrick argues that they should see such litigation not as a danger to the economy, but as a form of private enforcement of the law. He starts from the premise that all of us, conservatives and libertarians included, believe that markets need at least some rules to thrive, from laws that enforce contracts to laws that prevent companies from committing fraud. He also reminds us that conservatives consider the private sector to be superior to the government in most areas. And the relatively little-discussed intersection of those two beliefs is where the benefits of class action lawsuits become clear: when corporations commit misdeeds, class action lawsuits enlist the private sector to intervene, resulting in a smaller role for the government, lower taxes, and, ultimately, more effective solutions. Offering a novel argument that will surprise partisans on all sides, The Conservative Case for Class Actions is sure to breathe new life into this long-running debate.