The Precarious State of the Ragoonanan Principle in Ontario

• Author: Sidney Brejak
• Pages: 171-200

171

The Precarious State of the

Ragoonanan

Principle in

Ontario

Sidney Brejak

: The Ragoonanan Principle requires each named defendant

in a class proceeding to have a corresponding representative plaintiff

asserting a cause of action against them. The Principle, first articulated

by Cumming J in Ragoonanan Estate v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, is

only in force in Ontario and has been expressly rejected by most other

Canadian jurisdictions. However, in 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada

released its decision in Bank of Montreal v Marcotte, where it stated that

“[n]othing in the nature of class actions . . . requires representatives to

have a direct cause of action against, or a legal relationship with, each

defendant in the class action.” Subsequently, there was a lingering ques-

tion as to whether Marcotte overturned Ragoonanan and opened the door

for representative plaintiffs to bring multi-defendant class actions with-

out a cause of action against each defendant. However, in his 2021 deci-

sion Vecchio Longo Consulting Services Inc v Aphria Inc, Perell J seems to

have shut that door, holding that the Ragoonanan Principle was not over-

turned by Marcotte and is still applicable in Ontario. This article argues

that Perell J’s holding was erroneous and that the principles set out in

Marcotte did overturn Ragoonanan.