Date Announced

December 20, 2016

Lead Office

Toronto

On December 20, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") issued its judgment in Endean v. British Columbia, 2016 SCC 42, clarifying the power of superior court judges to sit outside their home provinces to hear and decide a matters relating to multi-jurisdictional class proceedings. 

Two issues were decided: 1) superior court judges in Ontario and British Columbia have the discretionary statutory power to sit outside their home provinces, and; 2) a video link to an open courtroom in the judge’s home jurisdiction is not a condition for the exercise of this authority. 

McCarthy Tétrault LLP represented ten of the provincial and territorial government respondents before the Supreme Court of Canada with a team led by Caroline Zayid that included Michael Rosenberg and Adam Goldenberg.