Cause And Effect: The Evidentiary Threshold Required To Certify A Product Liability Class Action

The British Columbia Court of Appeal recently clarified the evidentiary threshold that plaintiffs must satisfy at the certification stage in the context of product liability class actions in Charlton v. Abbott Laboratories, Ltd. This case applies recent jurisprudence addressing the certification requirements, which was addressed in a recent blog post comparing the role of evidence at certification in Canada and the United States.

The Court in Charlton confirmed that plaintiffs alleging that a product causes adverse effects or injury must adduce some evidence of a workable methodology to demonstrate that the product in question was capable of causing adverse effects on a class-wide basis. In so ruling, the Court affirmed that the principles articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the three consumer class action certification appeals known as the Indirect Purchaser Trilogy (discussed in an Osler Update entitled "Canada's Supreme Court Reshapes Consumer