Class-action lawsuits: Things to avoid buying in Canada [Video]

Purchasing potentially defective products or experiencing unwanted side effects or harm are risks consumers always take.

But they can hold companies accountable through class-action lawsuits, legal action undertaken on behalf of a number of complainants.

“For consumers, class action is an important way of providing them access to justice because usually in a consumer case the damages are relatively small and it doesn’t make sense for an individual to take it on by themselves,” said Linda Visser, partner with the class-action group at Siskinds Law Firm in London, Ont., in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

“But the benefit of a class action is that you can group a large number of people together and it does make it economically feasible to bring some of these claims and it’s a helpful mechanism to making companies accountable for any harms that they do to consumers.”

Based on their experience in court, class-action …