Conclusion
| Author | Craig Jones |
| Pages | 247-248 |
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Conclusion
The
past
two
decades have seen
the
most comprehensive rethinking
of
tort liti-
gation
in
Canada
since
the
emergence
of
negligence
law
itself.
This same
period
has
been marked
by
broad
jurisprudential
experimentation
in
Constitutional
law
driven
by a new
appreciation
of the
increasingly global marketplace
in
which
many areas
of
law
-
most notably laws involving
transjurisdictional
business
-
operate.
The
juxtaposition
of
these
two
movements
-
complex litigation
and
economic
"superterritoriality"
-
leads naturally
to the
idea that
we
might want
to
change
the way we
approach
the
systemic
and
diffuse
harms that arise
as a
matter
of
course
from
centralised business activity. Continued
fiscal
pressure
on
govern-
ments
over mounting health care expenses, some
of
which
is the
result
of
tortious
harm, supports
the
idea
of
fundamental reform.
Throughout this book
I
have attempted
to
provide support
for the
view that
this "rethinking" should involve
a
move towards increased aggregation
of
mass
tort claims, with
the
exploitation
of all the
tools
-
national
classes
on an
opt-out
or
even
a
mandatory basis, aggregation across claims through insurance-based
judgements, increased counsel
fee
structures,
and so on -
that such
an
ambition
implies.
My
goal
in
this book
has
been
to
suggest ways
in
which
the
class
action law-
suit
might
be
used
as a
vehicle
for
rationalizing
the
tort system
to
address mass
accidents. Relying principally
on the
work
of
American legal theorists, lawyers
and
judges,
I
have attempted
to
demonstrate ways
in
which
the
aggregation
of
mass tort claims
can
lead
to an
efficient
system
of
controlling undesirable
risks
and
the
resulting costs.
I
have also tried
to
anticipate
and
refute
the
objections
of
those
who
would reject
a
more aggressive
use of
claims aggregation
on the
basis
247
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