The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has approved a Notice of Certification of Class Proceeding (“the “Notice”) for a class proceeding against BlackBerry.
The Notice informs the class members about the case, who is included in the class, and how members may opt out of the proceeding, among other things.
The class members, who are former BlackBerry employees, allege that Blackberry terminated their employment when it allowed its business partner, Ford Motor Co. of Canada, to offer them new employment without providing any offer of continued employment with BlackBerry.
The class members seek their severance entitlements from Blackberry, as well as aggravated and punitive damages for Blackberry’s actions.
The Representative Plaintiff, David Parker, was one of the BlackBerry employees who went to Ford after BlackBerry would not provide him with any certainty about his future employment with BlackBerry. He started this Action in 2017 on behalf of the impacted employees with Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP as Class Counsel.
Parker is named as the representative plaintiff on behalf of these employees. Most of the 300 affected employees are based in Waterloo and Ottawa, Ontario with the rest scattered throughout Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Class members will be automatically included in and bound by the class proceeding unless they opt out between January 15, 2020 and March 15, 2020. Class Counsel will provide the Notice and details regarding the opt-out procedure to all class members for which it has a mailing and/or address for by January 15, 2020. Class Counsel has also posted the Notice to its website.
Class Counsel also encourages the class members to sign up for email alerts here to receive updates about this case.
For further information: Class members interested in more information about the class proceeding should contact Leigh Norton: leigh.norton@nelliganlaw.ca and (613) 231-8216.
[wp-embedder-pack width=”100%” height=”400px” download=”logged-in” download-text=”” url=”https://nelliganlaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Notice-to-Class-Members-of-Certification-of-Class-Proceeding.pdf” /]
