class action lawsuit is a lawsuit that's filed by one person one or two people on behalf of a wider group of people who are similarly situated generally class action lawsuits have three goals judicial economy access to justice and behavior modification judicial economy means having issues determined that are common to everyone at one trial spares resources right it allows people to group together to have their common issues decided and therefore you know instead of having arguably dozens or hundreds of trials sort of overwhelming the court systems these issues can be decided at one trial also you know in the context of a lot of litigation let's say it involves a group of people with disabilities or or vulnerabilities that would be maybe reluctant to come forward and access the courts and speak to the wrongs that may have been inflicted on them what a class action lawsuit allows is for one representative to advance those interests without let's say you know an impaired or a vulnerable person to necessarily have to do so themselves that vulnerable group is able to access the the justice system in a way they otherwise wouldn't and the final benefit is is one of behavior modification right by allowing people to group together and pursue common interests against a defendant that defendant is going to in theory modify their behavior to reduce the risk it's important to understand for class actions that the traditional jurisdictional borders don't don't exist as much you can file a class action lawsuit in nova scotia on behalf of individuals across canada with a class action lawsuit that's been certified in nova scotia on behalf of a class of all canadians at a common issues trial a court can and will make rulings that will apply to canadians regardless of where they live an easy to understand example for class action context is a product liability case where you know all purchasers of a product which is alleged by the representative plaintiff to be defective share common issues related to whether or not that product is or is not defective that's an issue which can be answered commonly at one trial only and so the benefit of a class action in that context is why subject people the courts to the cost of arguably hundreds of trials and risk maybe inconsistent results all addressing the same seminal question of the defendant's liability was the product defective was the defendant negligent those are issues which the canadian courts have determined can be answered commonly for the in the best interest of everybody and that's generally a class action lawsuit