Certification Not Always First, Says Court Of Appeal For Saskatchewan

A recent Court of Appeal decision confirms that in Saskatchewan, as in most provinces, there is no longer a clear presumption that certification applications go first in class proceedings.

Courts have discretion to hear preliminary applications, including applications for summary judgment, before certification hearings where

1. doing so would clearly benefit all parties or further the objective of judicial efficiency by narrowing the issues;
2. the preliminary application is time sensitive; or
3. hearing the application first is necessary to ensure that the proceeding is conducted fairly.

This is similar to the approach to sequencing adopted by appellate courts in British Columbia¹ (see our previous blog post) and Alberta.²