Successfully representing clients on some of Canada’s landmark cases, Caroline’s experience and unwavering commitment provides clients with an unmatched cross-practice expertise to achieve favourable resolutions

Caroline Zayid is McCarthy Tétrault’s Regional Managing Partner for Ontario and a partner in the firm’s Litigation Group. Caroline represents defendants involved in complex class action litigation, frequently leading a multi-jurisdictional team and advising clients as they navigate legal, business and reputational challenges. 

Caroline has successfully represented clients at first instance and on appeal, at all levels of court in Ontario, at the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal, and the courts of appeal in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. 

Caroline’s practice also includes litigating administrative law issues related to public law and professional regulation. As well, Caroline has advised clients facing product recalls and other product liability issues.

Her class action experience includes representing:

• Abbott Laboratories in its defence of proposed class actions arising from opioid products
• St. Jude Medical, Inc. and St. Jude Medical Canada, Inc. in defending a putative national class action relating to allegations of premature battery depletion in cardiac devices, including significant decision on role of third-party funding in class actions
• Navistar, a leading global manufacturer of commercial trucks, buses, defense vehicles and engines, in numerous proposed class proceedings in five Canadian provinces concerning alleged safety defects in Navistar’s heavy-duty trucks
• the Governments of seven provinces and all three territories, as respondents, in an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada concerning the management of national class actions
• CIBC in a series of class actions across the country, which challenge the calculation of mortgage prepayment charges
• Abbott Laboratories in its successful defence against certification of a class action alleging liability for its Meridia drug
• Sanofi S.A. in parallel national class proceedings related to over the counter drug Zantac
• Takata Corporation, and its US subsidiaries, in multiple Canadian class actions concerning allegedly defective airbags
• Chrysler Canada in a class action to address retiree health benefits arising from Chrysler restructuring
• Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in a class action relating to calculation of benefits
• The manufacturer of a glucose monitoring device in a class action alleging defects in the product, including leading decision on waiver of tort
• Franklin Templeton successfully in a class action alleging damages arising from market timing
• SNC-Lavalin successfully in a securities class action relating to Bre-X Minerals, including the first Ontario ruling dismissing “fraud on the market” theory
• The Province of Ontario in the class action commenced as a result of the contamination of water in Walkerton, Ontario

Caroline’s public law and administrative law experience includes:

• The Ontario College of Teachers, before the Supreme Court of Canada in v. Jarvis, a landmark decision regarding student privacy
• Ontario’s WSIB, before the Ontario Court of Appeal, in a decision addressing pleading of misfeasance in public office
• The Canadian Human Rights Commission in the first successful prosecution of a case concerning the promotion of hatred on the internet
• The prosecution of the first Ontario case in which a teacher’s certificate was revoked for political activities outside the classroom that were found to be incompatible with the professional obligations of a teacher

Education and Community Leadership

Caroline has been a contributing author to McCarthy Tétrault’s publications Defending Class Actions in Canada and Doing Business in Canada. She served for several years as Vice-President of the Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto.

Between 1993 to 1995, Caroline served as a special advisor to the Ontario Minister of Education and Training on legislative matters. For several years, she taught trial advocacy at the University of Toronto Law School and was formerly an instructor in the Ontario Management Development Program at George Brown College. Caroline has also spoken on legal issues in Canada and the United States. Caroline received her LLB in 1988 from Dalhousie University. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1990.