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ARTICLE · 30 AUGUST 2016

Passivity Can Be Your Enemy: Update From Quebec's New Rules Of Procedure And Their Potential Impact On Class Actions

McCarthy Tétrault
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Among the new tools available to ensure "proportionality" and "speediness" in proceedings, s. 234 of the CCP allows the judge to appoint one or more qualified experts to provide expert evidence...

CanadaLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Michel Gagné
Michel Gagné
Pierre-Jérôme Bouchard
Pierre-Jérôme Bouchard
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The new Québec Code of Civil Procedure (the "CCP") has now been in force for eight months. Among the new tools available to ensure "proportionality" and "speediness" in proceedings, s. 234 of the CCP allows the judge to appoint one or more qualified experts to provide expert evidence deemed "necessary in order to decide the dispute". There has been much speculation in the Quebec legal community about the so-called "single expert" and the context and the type of files in which judges would agree to use their intrusive new power. Most practitioners expected (or hoped) that it would be confined to smaller cases. InRegroupement des citoyens du quartier Saint-Georges inc. c. Alcoa Canada ltée, 2016 QCCS 2969, ("Alcoa"), Justice Carl Lachance of the Quebec Superior Court put an end to the speculation and granted Plaintiff's motion to appoint an independent expert in the context of a class action. The judgment was not appealed.

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