Class Actions

Introduction In April 2013, Rana Plaza – an unsanctioned commercial building on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh home to several clothing manufacturers – collapsed. The failure was driven in part by the industrial equipment required to manufacture garments in the building, which had a poor…

Introduction The Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Lavender v Miller Bernstein[1] recently added to the jurisprudence regarding a defendant’s liability for a negligent misstatement in a situation where the plaintiff did not personally read or rely on the misstatement. Siskinds LLP is coun…

“Get those coming up from under! Los de Abajo! Get the underdogs!” [1] On June 8, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada refused Tahoe Resources Inc.’s application for leave to appeal the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in Garcia v. Tahoe Resources Inc., 2017 BCCA 39.[2] I…

Case Commentary: Douez v Facebook, Inc., 2017 SCC 33 Ms. Douez, an ordinary citizen of the Province of British Columbia, brought a proposed class action against the internet giant, Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”), alleging that it improperly used her personal information to advertise companies a…

Introduction The recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Bennett v Lenovo, 2017 ONSC 1082 is an important step in the development of privacy class actions in Canada. In Lenovo, the Court refused to strike the majority of causes of action pleaded by the Plaintiffs, permitt…

Recently at Siskinds, we’ve written about Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation or CASL[1] (see here and here). In those articles, we described the private right of action contemplated by CASL. Broadly speaking, the private right of action would allow a person affected by a breach of certain sectio…

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, or CASL, came into force in July of 2014. Effectively, sending spam[1] is a violation of the law. You may have received spam if you can answer “no” to any of the following questions: Did you consent to the sender contacting you? Are you easily able to unsubscr…

Background The Defendants, Boston Scientific Ltd. and Boston Scientific Corporation (collectively “Boston Scientific”) designed, manufactured and sold transvaginal mesh (“TVM”) medical devices that were implanted into thousands of Canadian women for the treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinen…

(Note: There have been changes to the legislature since this article was published. Please go here for an update.) The laws of Canada protect consumers and computer users against improper commercial electronic activities. If you are a Canadian consumer who uses a computer or goes on the inte…