September 28, 2011



Laura Cooper is Vice-Chair of Fasken Martineau's Ontario Litigation Department and Co-Chair of the Class Actions Practice Group.

Excerpt

Certification of class action lawsuits is on the increase, raising tactical questions about whether defendant insurers should even bother fighting certification, or simply fight the good fight at trial. Laura Cooper, partner at Fasken Martineau, discussed class action statistics and legal strategies at the National Insurance Conference of Canada (NICC) in Vancouver on Sept. 27.

"With respect to class actions generally, I'm sorry to say the news isn't great," Cooper said. "Certification of class actions is definitely on the upswing. "In the past year, in Ontario, where I primarily practise, out of 24 certification motions that were contested, 20 of them were certified. That was a change from the previous record of some 60% certification." In other words, it is getting to be more difficult for defendant insurers to defeat certification.