Conclusion. The Future of Large-Scale Claims in Canada

• Author: Jamie Cassels - Craig Jones
• Pages: 468-470

The Future of Large-Scale

Claims in Canada

As we stressed in the introduction to this book, the high rate of settlement

of large-scale claims (particularly once certified as class actions) makes any

discussion of the law in the area inherently speculative. Without a constant

generation of judicial precedent, lawyers and other students of the field are

left with precious little certainty regarding the law that will govern any

emerging claim. Crucial and far-reaching questions going to the heart of

substantive grounds of liability, conflict of laws principles, and procedural

matters remain unanswered.

But this is not to say that no trends can be gleaned from the recent

Canadian experience with large-scale claims. We here conclude with a

summary of what are, in our view, the most significant of these.

We are of the view that the law will continue to grow to respond to the

increasingly complex risks and harms that are inevitable in modern society.

The law will continue to adapt to the reality that many of those harms affect

large classes of persons. However, the way in which Canadian law grows will

be more orderly and cautious than in the United States, and we will certain-

ly not see the adoption of ideas such as absolute product line liability. Indeed,

despite repeated calls for the adoption of strict liability from U.S. jurispru-

dence, it is our view that the substantive law of product liability will likely

remain an analysis based on negligence principles. There are a number of

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