The Corporate Plaintiff: Litigating For Profit?

Originally published for the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association's 20th Annual Meeting, Quebec City, August 17-19, 2008.

To those who fall between the categories of the very rich and the very poor, the cost of litigation is prohibitive. In his novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens centred his plot on Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, litigation in connection with an estate. After years of litigation, during which the parties died or were born into the lawsuit, the case finally came to a close with the announcement that the estate had been entirely consumed in costs. The moral drawn by the author was that one should suffer any indignity and any fate rather than become involved in the Court of Chancery.¹