Talk about misleading headlines.  

The article seems to be nothing but propaganda that might have been
ghost-written by a frightened defendant's PR team, and planted with a lazy
journalist.

The  "class proceeding" (we say "class action suit" in Canada's southern
neighbor)  seems at worst, a non-issue, and at best, a "sure thing" for the
beekeepers looking for a partial reimbursement for all the pesticide kills
they have suffered.

Yes, Canada has the "loser pays" approach to costs and legal fees in civil
cases, but this is not a credible risk for the plaintiffs.  The line about
"loser pays" is what caught my attention, as it is a very crude attempt at
intimidation.  I don't like to see my fellow beekeepers treated like idiots.
Cases like these are not often litigated, they are settled as a general
rule, and it would only be in a litigated case with a judgment that there
would be a "loser" declared who would "pay" the costs and attorney fees.

Here's the key factor - in Canada, there is a lack of any concept of a
"predominance" requirement. In the USA, this requirement prohibits class
certifications unless "common issues" predominate over "individual issues"
in the claimed class of plaintiffs.   So, this leads directly to
head-scratching cases like "Comite d'environement de la Baie, Inc. v.
Societe d'electrolyse et de chimie Alcan Ltee", where a Quebec court allowed
a class of people who had their homes damaged by industrial fumes, and the
class included both homeowners and renters who did not even own the homes
that were damaged.  In the US, a claim of property damage can only be
brought by the owner of the damaged property, so a renting tenant would lack
standing.  Weird stuff.  Plaintiffs who are more different than they are
alike can still be part of a class action, even if they suffered different
types of damages and to different extents.  This is tailor-made for
pesticide cases, as every incident is a little different.

So, it seems certain that some sort of class can be certified by the court,
on one excuse or another.  Once a class is certified, the downside risk of a
massive damages award and the impact of an class-action suit on a company's
financials looms so large, even when the claims are very weak, companies
have no choice but to negotiate a settlement.  Letting something like this
anywhere near the courthouse steps would sandbag the company's stock price
and create a PR hole that will take generations to climb out of.

Bayer and Syngenta certainly won't want to litigate this, as science fares
worse in a courtroom than it does in beekeeper discussion groups.  It also
presents the risk of triggering even more draconian worldwide restrictions
on the sales of their products by politicians who want to curry favor, and
could care less about little details like "facts".  Bayer CropScience rakes
in about $2.5 billion dollars per quarter, Syngenta about $3.5 billion. They
have a lot to protect.

So, it may very well be "extortion", but it has only one rational outcome,
if the class can be certified.
If I were a Canadian beekeeper, I would not be so quick to distance myself
from the class of plaintiffs until the class is defined in writing.

If I were a Canadian beekeeping club president, I would NOT write a letter
claiming to represent the club's membership on this issue, as it is
presumptuous and will have no impact on what the membership will actually
do.  It would do nothing but create division and bad feelings over an issue
that is none of the club president's business from the get-go, as it is
clearly an individual choice for each beekeeper to make.  If a large enough,
or vocal enough subset of the club decides to join the class, and promote
the suit to others, the president ends up looking like someone who is not a
leader at all, but instead, a clueless buffoon.  At least wait until the
class is defined to speak about who might be and who might not be a member
of the plaintiff class, but as I have said in a similar vein "Beekeeper
Clubs Do NOT Need A Foreign Policy Stance!"  (But when even beekeepers take
to the streets with protest signs, it should be clear that things are very
messed up.)

As for the specific specter of liability raised in the article, note that
the approach taken to class membership in Canada is "opt out" so, any
beekeeper, even one who lives in the far North, never pays any attention to
the news, and gets all of his contact with the outside world through iTunes
downloads is a valid member of the class.  But assume for a moment that the
class is not certified, and "loser pays" is levied against the plaintiffs.
This beekeeper is clearly exempt from any liability, as he was unaware of
the case, and unable to "opt out".  See how that letter the club president
wrote and sent to all member of his club was such a utterly boneheaded move?
Don't play at being a legal beagle, hire a legal beagle, and keep him on a
short leash!  You wouldn't let a lawyer split a hive, why would you try to
pick a legal strategy?

In other class-action suit news, everyone can get $15 each if they bought a
computer with a Pentium 4 chip 14 years ago.  Yep, they lied about AMD chips
being slower, and fudged benchmarks, and they dragged out settling the suit
for a decade.  So, did you buy a Pentium 4 based computer?  If so, send in
your name, no proof of purchase required, and you get $15 back from Intel,
which if nothing else, will compensate you for the physic damage done by
their 4-note audio logo. You just hummed , it didn't you?  "Bah Bump Bah
BUM!" that's right "Intel Inside" means it has gotten inside your head!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/31/fifteen_whole_dollars_on_offer_for_c
ranky_pentiums_4_buyers/
http://tinyurl.com/oc4k59g

(How do I know so much about this stuff?  Thank AT&T Bell Labs, who forced
all management above a certain level to attend seminars on such issues.  It
was cool to work for a company that could afford to maintain its own club
with a private golf course, but the lengths that they went to in utilizing
it as a "business meeting facility" were silly at times.)

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