Shared Goals, Divided Jurisdiction: The Uneasy Relationship Between Class Actions and Administrative Law

• Author: Helene Love
• Pages: 51-76

51

Shared Goals, Divided Jurisdiction: The Uneasy

Relationship between Class Actions and

Administrative Law

Helene Love

: Access to justice is a critical problem facing Canadian courts.

To address access to justice issues in the civil context, legislatures cre-

ated both the class action procedure within the courts and administrative

schemes as alternatives to the courts. Despite their shared access to jus-

tice goals, administrative law principles prevent class actions from being

advanced in areas that are governed by an administrative scheme. This

paper explores the practical ef‌fect of this jurisdictional conf‌lict by com-

paring the relative benef‌its of class actions to statutory dispute resolution

processes. In cases where jurisdictional conf‌licts arise, the prospective

class members who suf‌fer the most when a claim is diverted to an admin-

istrative scheme are those who require provisions such as contingency

fee arrangements, a representative plaintif‌f, and the protections af‌forded

by the judicial oversight of litigation. I suggest that the legislature could

further the access to justice and judicial economy objectives of both class

proceedings and these administrative schemes by incorporating these

provisions into administrative schemes, or by allowing the superior court

to assume jurisdiction of mass claims in appropriate circumstances.