Author's Note

• Author: Craig Jones
• Pages: 15-16

Author's

Note

This book began

as my

master's thesis

at

Harvard

Law

School.

My

original pro-

posal

was

quite modest;

I

hoped

to

pick

my way

through

the

various problems

encountered

by the

"national",

or

"interprovincial", class action.

As my

work

progressed,

it

became apparent that many

of the

questions with which

I was

struggling spoke more fundamentally

to the way we

approach

the

aggregation

of

claims generally. Increasing familiarity with

the

work done

on

class

action the-

ory

in the

United States

led me to

develop

- as

much

for my own

benefit

as

any-

thing

- the

rational framework

for

class action system design

I set out

here.

It

is

therefore

too

late

to

deny

that

the

ambition

of

this work

is to

provide

a

comprehensive theoretical

basis

for the

class

action, examining

the

idea

of the

class

action

from

its

conceptual underpinnings

to its

practical implementation.

It

is my

hope that judges, litigators

and

academics

in

Canada

and

elsewhere might

find

it

useful,

if not as a

guide then

at

least

as a

starting point

for

discussion

in

some

of the

more contentious areas

of the

field

of

complex litigation.

I was

profoundly

fortunate

to

have

as my

thesis supervisor David Rosenberg,

whose work

on

mass tort theory over

the

past three decades forms

the

foundation

for

much

of the

analysis

in

this

book.

Professor

Rosenberg's

international repu-

tation

is

such that

he

certainly didn't need

to

show such extraordinary patience

as

my

project grew

to

nearly three times

its

initially expected length.

I am

hon-

oured that

he has

agreed

to

provide

the

Foreword

to

this work.

My

friend

and

colleague John Kleefeld reviewed

my

precis

and

from

that

point forward constantly passed along

cases,

snippets

and

ideas;

this work

has

benefited greatly

from

our

frequent conversations. Jamie

Cassels

introduced

me

to

the

problems

of

aggregation

and

probabilistic causation

and has

been

a

men-

tor and

great

friend

since then.

I am

also indebted

to the

partners, associates

and

staff

of

Bull, Housser

&

Tupper,

my

professional family since 1996,

and to my

friends

and

colleagues

both

in

legal

practice

and

academia,

in

particular

Joe

Arvay, John Dives, Howard

Ehrlich,

Tom

Berger, Robin Elliot, Greg Lewis, Elliott Myers,

Wes

Pue, Talha

Syed,

and Dan

Webster. Each contributed

in

some

way to the

eventual produc-

tion

of

this book. Ward Branch

and

David Klein,

two of

Canada's most experi-

enced class action counsel, have been generous with their time

and

candid with

their thoughts. Ryan Dalziel assisted

me in

turning

the

original paper into this

book's

present format,

and

provided thoughtful suggestions

and

feedback

on the

content.

Jeff

Miller

at

Irwin

Law

showed enthusiasm

for

this book since

the

ear-

liest days,

and his

support

has

sped

the

project along.

Apart

from

the

very direct assistance

of

Professor Rosenberg,

at

Harvard

I

benefited

from

classes with

the

redoubtable Charles Fried, Detlev Vagts, Alan

xv