Introduction

• Author: Harvey T Strosberg, QC
• Pages: 187-189

187

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this long-awaited issue! We hope you enjoy this interesting

issue.

This journal is jam-packed with wonderful articles, including two

book reviews, the 2018 Strosberg Pri ze-winning p aper, and two additional

remarkable prize entries. We have also included a revised version of

Madeleine Brown’s 2017 Strosberg Prize-winning paper, which was ori-

ginally published i n volume 13, issue 1. During our f‌inal e diting process,

some of the Judges referred to by the author were inadvertently given

incorrect titles. In t his slightly revised version, these titles have been

corrected.

Matt Malone is the 2018 Strosberg Prize winner! His pri ze-winning

paper is titled “Judicial Scrutiny of Third Part y Litigation Funding Agree-

ments in Canadian Class Actions.” He states that the emergence of third

party litigation funding agreements — contracts by third pa rties fund-

ing litigation in which they h ave no direct stake or claim, usually in ex-

change for a percentage of the recovery — has animated vigorous debate

about some of the most fundamental i ssues in the legal system. His paper

examines re cent trends in third party l itigation funding of class proceed-

ings in Canad a. He analyzes the efforts by C anadian judges to bring scr u-

tiny to such fundin g arrangements. He argues that t hese efforts generally

succeed in balancing the concerns of both proponents and opponents of

such agreements.

In “Class Proceedings and the Future of Boilerplate in Consumer

Contracts: Unconscionability as a Common Law Solution to Class Act ion

Avoidance,” Nicholas Reynolds wr ites that although boiler plate text in

consumer contracts is ubiquitous, consumers have only the slightest

understanding of the terms to which they agree. Reynolds believes that

this change in how commerce is conducted has caused contract theory

to slip into a different paradigm, divorced from actual agreement. Con-

sumers are now overwhelmingly vulnerable, unknow ingly agreeing to a

host of terms that d iscourages all but the boldest consumers from pursu-

ing remedies, and the substance of consumer contracts i s at odds with

Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act. This well-received Strosberg submission

CCAR 13-2.indb 187 10/30/2018 11:41:50 AM