Causation in Health Products Class Action Certification

Class actions play an increasing role in Canadian health litigation, with more and more cases being brought forward to claim compensation for injuries caused by pharmaceutical drugs and other health products. However, the issues of causation these claims raise often create difficulties for plaintiffs. In particular, manufacturers typically contest vigorously the causal link between their products and the injuries claimed by plaintiffs. And where plaintiffs are able to prove the propensity of a product to cause the type of injury they suffer from, showing that it caused their injury might be more challenging. How stringent courts are in evaluating evidentiary and methodological requirements therefore has a direct impact on the plaintiffs’ success in this difficult demonstration. This paper offers a comparative law account of the treatment of causation at certification and authorization within the pharmaceutical class action cases of the civil law province of Quebec and the common law jurisdictions of the rest of Canada. Doing so, it wants to assess the extent to which causal hurdles prevent this procedural mechanism from achieving its more global social objectives in this context