Nipping The Class Action In The Bud: Saskatchewan Court Dismisses Claim Pre-Certification

On October 30, 2015, the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench released a decision that has significant implications for the conduct of class proceedings, and the remedies available under Canadian consumer protection legislation.

The Case

Sandoff et al. v. Loblaw Companies Ltd. et al.,¹ was a proposed class action, in which the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant had marketed certain soft drink products in a misleading manner. The products were labelled as "low sodium". The plaintiffs conceded that this label was objectively accurate and the uncontested evidence was that the products contained less than one seventh of the sodium that Health Canada permits in products labelled as "low sodium".² The plaintiffs argued, however, that the label was nonetheless misleading, because allegedly there were other products in the marketplace that contained comparable sodium levels, but that were not labelled as "low sodium".