Case information

Civil procedure — Class actions — Appeals — Revocation — Court of Appeal ordering individual recovery for class action members and referring case back to trial judge to determine terms of reimbursement — Trial judge dismissing applicants’ motion to obtain financial information from respondents — Court of Appeal denying leave to appeal trial judge’s decision and dismissing motion for revocation of its own first judgment ordering individual recovery — Whether conditions for revocation are met in this case — If Court of Appeal did not have power to order individual recovery, whether its conclusion can be declared null — Code of Civil Procedure, CQLR, c. C 25.01, arts. 323, 345, 347, 592, 595, 599 and 604.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicants brought a class action seeking the reimbursement of fees paid to the respondents for the early termination of their telecommunications service contracts. In 2017, the trial judge dismissed the class action. In June 2019, the Court of Appeal allowed the action in part and found the termination clauses to be abusive. However, it held that the collective recovery sought by the applicants was not appropriate; it therefore ordered individual recovery instead and referred the case back to the trial judge to determine the terms of reimbursement. In the spring of 2020, the parties proposed a list of matters to be discussed with respect to the execution of the Court of Appeal’s 2019 judgment ordering individual reimbursement. In particular, the applicants wanted to know the total amount paid in contract termination fees.

The Superior Court judge dismissed the applicants’ motion to obtain financial information from the respondents. In the Court of Appeal, the applicants brought two motions: a motion for leave to appeal the trial judge’s most recent decision, and a motion in revocation of the Court of Appeal’s 2019 judgment ordering individual recovery. The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed both motions.