The Supreme Court Holds That Preferability May Hinge On Substantive Access To Justice

In AIC Limited v. Fisher, 2013 SCC 69, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on what makes a class action a preferable procedure under s.5(1)(d) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992. The Supreme Court's decision on this point came after varied decisions and reasoning by each of the courts below and provides necessary guidance on this certification criterion. Assuming that the rest of the statutory criteria are met, whether a class action is preferable necessitates comparing class proceedings with other possible procedural options through the triad of the goals of class proceedings:  access to justice, behaviour modification and judicial economy. The facts and context of this case ultimately resulted in the Supreme Court's analysis focusing on access to justice.