Rachel McMillan

The plaintiff sought to certify a class action against an endoscopy clinic and its operator following a public health notice regarding infection control lapses.

The notice advised former patients to be tested for blood-borne diseases.

The plaintiff, who tested negative, sought compensation for exposure to enhanced risk of infection, shock, trauma, and inconvenience.

The court found that the claims raised genuine common issues, including duty of care, standard of care, and foreseeability of harm.

The court also determined that a class proceeding was the preferable procedure for resolving the claims of the 6,800 affected individuals.

The certification motion was granted.

The plaintiff brought a class action on behalf of Canadian cattle farmers against the Government of Canada, alleging negligence in its response to the threat of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as 'mad cow disease'.

The plaintiff claimed that Canada failed to implement a ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban in a timely manner and failed to prevent cattle imported from the United Kingdom from entering the animal feed chain, which led to the discovery of a BSE-infected Canadian cow in May 2003 and the subsequent closure of international borders to Canadian cattle and beef.

The court dismissed the action, finding that the claim was barred by section 9 of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act because the class members had received compensation through various government financial assistance programs.

Furthermore, the court held that Canada did not owe a private law duty of care to the cattle farmers and that its policy decisions regarding the monitoring of imported cattle and the timing of the feed ban were reasonable and did not breach the standard of care.

During a class action trial regarding the federal government's alleged negligence in preventing mad cow disease, the defendant sought to read into evidence discovery transcripts from the current representative plaintiff, the deceased former representative plaintiff, and other class members.

The court denied the request to read in the current representative plaintiff's evidence, applying the rule in Browne v. Dunn, as the plaintiff had already testified and the evidence did not merely fill a gap.

The court also denied leave to read in the deceased former plaintiff's evidence under Rule 31.11(6) and (7), finding the excerpts to be of limited importance and lacking cross-examination.

However, the court permitted the defendant to read in discovery evidence from other class members, as it provided helpful real-world insight into the financial impact on different cattle producers.

During a common issues trial regarding the federal government's alleged negligence in preventing the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease), the plaintiff sought to admit eight foreign public records for the truth of their contents.

The defendant argued the documents should only be admitted to show the government's knowledge of them.

The court held that the documents, which included reports from the World Health Organization and the European Commission, met the criteria for the public documents exception under s. 25 of the Ontario Evidence Act and were admissible for the truth of their contents, though the court reserved judgment on the weight to be given to them.

The parties in a class action jointly sought an adjournment of the trial commencement to allow time to finalize settlement discussions.

The court granted the adjournment, moving the trial start date from February 1, 2021, to February 16, 2021, noting that no further adjournments would be granted.

The defendants in a 15-year-old class action regarding the federal government's response to the mad cow disease crisis brought a motion to adjourn the peremptory trial date of January 18, 2021, to September 2021.

They cited difficulties preparing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the late delivery of supplementary expert reports by the plaintiff.

The court dismissed the motion for a lengthy adjournment, finding that the parties were well-resourced to conduct a virtual trial and that the late expert reports were responsive to the defendants' own late productions.

The trial commencement was postponed by two weeks to February 1, 2021, to allow for the completion of remaining pre-trial steps.