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Megan B. McPhee Principal
Megan B. McPhee is a principal with Kim Spencer McPhee. Her practice focuses on the prosecution and defence of class actions and complex commercial litigation. Megan acts on a wide range of cases including insurance, Crown liability, securities, competition, medical product liability and pharmaceutical class actions. She has served as counsel before all levels of court in Ontario and B.C. and at the Supreme Court of Canada.
Megan recently represented Toronto-based venture capitalists in a complex Commercial List trial. She successfully obtained a judgment of nearly $4 million USD in compensatory and punitive damages and an order for $12.33 million USD for disgorgement of profits for breach of fiduciary duties and conspiracy by their directors/shareholders and a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
Megan serves as Class Counsel on several certified class actions alleging systemic negligence with respect to the RCMP. She serves as a lead counsel in Merlo Davidson v Her Majesty The Queen, the first workplace gender harassment class action settlement in Canada. The settlement resulted in $125+ million being paid out to over 2,300 women who successfully obtained compensation for the gender and sexual-orientation based harassment they suffered while serving in the RCMP. The settlement also included an apology from the RCMP Commissioner and mandated change initiatives aimed at eliminating gender and sexual orientation-based harassment and discrimination within the RCMP. Megan is also Class Counsel in Greenwood v Her Majesty The Queen, a class action involving several tens of thousands of class members alleging decades of systemic bullying, intimidation, and harassment in the RCMP, and Corriveau v Her Majesty The Queen, a class action brought on behalf of nearly 40,000 class members who underwent a medical examination by an RCMP-designated doctor as part of their application to the Force. The action alleges applicants were either sexually assaulted by the RCMP-designated physician or placed at increased risk of an assault during their examination, and that the RCMP has had knowledge of and condoned this behaviour for decades.
Megan is Co-Editor of the Kim Spencer McPhee Class Action Monitor, a reporter published by Thomson Reuters. The Kim Spencer McPhee Class Action Monitor provides bi-weekly updates on material developments in the class action practice across Canada. A regular publisher, she has also appeared as a speaker at class action and mental health conferences.
Megan appears in the Thomson Reuters 2012 and 2013 issues of the US/Canada Guide to Leading Cross-border Litigation Lawyers as a Litigation Lawyer to Watch and was named a 2012 Lexpert Rising Star, Leading Lawyers Under 40. Some of Megan's other significant retainers include:
- representing a class of 200,000+ individuals in a multi-billion dollar class action against Sun Life involving breach of contract with respect to universal life insurance policies;
- representing the class in a certified action against the City of Thunder Bay alleging negligence in failing to properly maintain and operate the City’s water treatment plant, leading to a catastrophic failure of the plant and the flooding and contamination of class member’s homes;
- acting as counsel to Invesco Canada, bcIMC, NEI, Bâtirente, Matrix Asset Management, Gestion Férique and Montrusco Bolton in litigation against Sino-Forest;
- acting for the plaintiffs in the first First Nation class action certified against the Crown involving toxic mould in Reserve housing;
- representing the plaintiffs in class actions against Toyota and GM alleging serious vehicle defects. The Toyota unintended acceleration settlement represents one of the largest product liability settlements in Canada; and
- representing the plaintiffs and national counsel group in a number of medical device and pharmaceutical class actions, including cases involving Guidant pacemakers, metal-on-metal hip implants, defibrillators and leads.
Megan serves as a member of the board of directors of Hackergal, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to inspire girls to pursue careers in computer science by introducing them to coding.
Megan can be reached at mbm@complexlaw.ca.