About the Class Action / Mass Tort and Compensation

Zantac contains the active ingredient Ranitidine. When ingested, Ranitidine metabolizes into N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) which Health Canada, the Federal Drug Adinistration, and the World Health Organization classify as a probable carcinogen, which has been linked to several cancers.

On September 13, 2019 the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care released a statement for all Canadians indicating that “NDMA is classified as a probable human carcinogen.” In addition, the dangers of NDMA have been publicly known for over 40 years.

The Statement of Claim purports that the Defendants knew or ought to have known that the contaminated products contained NDMA that increased the risk to consumers of serious complications, including the development of cancer and other ailments. The Defendants also failed to issue a timely recall of the affected drugs when they knew about the potential cancer risks of their products.

Order for Discontinuance of Class Action in Ontario

Order for Discontinuance of Class Action in Alberta

Statement of Claim

Updates

December 2023:

We write to provide you with a further update beyond the update provided in July 2023. Please note we have received an order for the discontinuance of the class action we commenced in Ontario and Alberta. We are now able to proceed with a group of individual actions across all provinces.

Please be advised that the Certification of the Class Action was denied by the Superior Court. Plaintiff’s counsel for the class action may be appealing this decision. We wait for confirmation of any appeals that may be made.

Additionally, in the US, the judge presiding over the Zantac Multi-District Litigation has dismissed all claims in the Southern District of Florida.

In light of the decisions in the US and in the national class action in Canada, we are currently re-assessing whether there is still a viable claim.

July 2023:

We write to provide you with a further update beyond the update provided in March 2023. The national class action certification motion was heard on October 3-14, 2022. A decision from the class action certification motion has not yet been released by the presiding judge. For your information, a certification motion is where the court allows the action to proceed as a class action – this step is not necessary for our individual actions, which will be proceeding as a group of individual cases. However, we will need to wait for the decision of the certification motion. Our clients have agreed to opt out of the class action so, once a decision is made, we will be opting out our clients and proceeding with the group of individual cases.

Please note we have received an order for the discontinuance of the class action we commenced in Ontario and Alberta. As such, we are now able to proceed with a group of individual actions across all provinces.

We are currently working towards drafting and issuing individual claims for all individuals who have signed up with us and agreed to opt out of the class action being run by another group of firms. Please let us know if you have not been contacted yet about the drafting of your claim.

March 2023:

We write to provide you with a further update beyond the update provided in December. Please note we have received an order for the discontinuance of the class action we commenced in Ontario and Alberta. We are now able to proceed with a group of individual actions across all provinces.

We are currently working towards drafting and issuing individual claims for all individuals who have signed up with us and agreed to opt out of the class action being run by another group of firms. Following the decision in the certification motion in that class action, we will be opting out our clients and proceeding with the group of individual cases. We will contact you shortly to draft your claim.

December 2022:

We write to provide you with a further update beyond the update provided in August. Please note we have now received an order for the discontinuance of the class action we commenced in Ontario. We are also working towards withdrawing our class action commenced in Alberta to proceed with a group of individual actions across all provinces.

We are currently working towards drafting and issuing individual claims for all individuals who have signed up with us and agreed to opt out of the class action being run by another group of firms. Following the decision in the certification motion in that class action, we will be opting out our clients and proceeding with the group of individual cases. We will contact you shortly to draft your claim.

August 2022:

Further to our April update, we write to provide you with a further update. We are currently in the process of moving our clients over to a mass tort. Please let us know if you have not been contacted yet. By way of background, a mass tort does not have one representative plaintiff, rather multiple lawsuits that are settled on an individual basis. A mass tort allows the individual to have complete control over their own case and can decide their own settlement. We are currently working on drafting statement of claims in the upcoming months and will be in touch with you as more information is required for your individual files.

April 2022:

We write to provide you with a further update to our December update. We are currently in the process of moving our clients over to a mass tort. Please let us know if you have not been contacted yet. By way of background, a mass tort does not have one representative plaintiff, rather multiple lawsuits that are settled on an individual basis. A mass tort allows the individual to have complete control over their own case and can decide their own settlement. We are currently working on drafting statement of claims and will be in touch with you as more information is required for your individual files.

December 2021:

We write to provide you with a further update to our August update. We are currently in the process of moving our clients over to a mass tort. Please let us know if you have not been contacted yet. By way of background, a mass tort does not have one representative plaintiff, rather multiple lawsuits that are settled on an individual basis. A mass tort allows the individual to have complete control over their own case and can decide their own settlement. We are currently working on drafting statement of claims and will be in touch with you as more information is required for your individual files.

August 2021:

We write to provide you with a further update to our June 9th update. As mentioned in our last update, we are currently proceeding with an action in Ontario and are looking at booking our next court appearance. In the meantime, we will also be issuing a Notice of Civil Claim in British Columbia, as we believe that jurisdiction may be preferable in the advancement of the case. Regardless of whether we proceed in Ontario or British Columbia, everyone who has signed up with us will still be part of the same class.