Voltage Turns Up the Voltage & Appeals the Rogers Reimbursement Ruling

(Wikimedia)

I recently reported on the Federal Court’s ruling on the Federal Court’s August 6, 2019 ruling, which was determined after being remitted by the Supreme Court of Canada, on reimbursement payable to Rogers in the Voltage v. Salna reverse class action. I suggestedthat, if Voltage wants the names and street addresses of the ~55,000 defendants in the class, this could potentially cost over $870,000.

Justice Boswell concluded that each timestamp lookup entitled Rogers to reimbursement for 12 minutes of time at $35 an hour plus HST. Since there will normally be two timestamp lookups for each defendant in this mass litigation cases, that suggests reimbursement of 24÷60 X $35 which is $14 plus HST. See para. 87 of the Order and Reasons.

There are apparently approximately 55,000 potential defendants in this reverse class action, if it is allowed to proceed. More on that below. Accordingly, it would appear that if Voltage wants the names and addresses of all of these potential defendants the cost will be at least $14 times 55,000 or $770,000 plus HST, which comes to $870,100. It took some time and a failed attempt to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but Voltage finally paid the sum of $75,000 into court in this reverse class action to keep it alive.

Voltage filed a Notice of Appeal on August 16, 2019 within the ten days period applicable to interlocutory rulings, since the reimbursement ruling came on August 6, 2019. 

I won’t comment at any further on this at this time this time.  I may have more to say if Rogers files a cross-appeal, which would presumably be due on August 26, 2019.

It will also be interesting to see if Salna or CIPPIC seek to get involved on this aspect of this complex and controversial proceeding.

Stay tuned.

HPK