JD student Michael Rosenberg wins prestigious Strosberg prize

Graduating JD student Michael Rosenberg has won the 2009 Harvey Strosberg prize, worth ten thousand dollars, awarded each year for the best student paper in Canada on a class action topic. The paper will be published in the Canadian Class Action Law Review under the title of "The Rise and Imminent Fall of Waiver of Tort in Class Proceedings."

The paper began its career as a term paper in the Class Actions course offered by Professors Ziegel and Watson in the spring term of 2008. Mike continued to work on the paper last summer while working at McCarthys, then refined it further while taking Prof. Ernest Weinrib's restitution course in the fall 2008 term. The topic is of great practical and theoretical importance in class action proceedings  and is currently being litigated before Canadian courts. The debate will determine whether class members will have a remedy against a defendant whose product is  defective or injurious even though  class members cannot prove that they were individually injured by the defect. The plaintiffs have sought to overcome this difficulty  by arguing that the defendant was unjustly enriched at the expense of class members and should therefore be required to disgorge its ill gotten gain.

Michael Rosenberg will be clerking for Chief Justice McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada after he graduates this June.