Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope of permissible amendments to a proposed class action authorization, including whether the amended pleading is “entirely new” and unrelated to the original claim.
• Characterisation of SOCAN’s royalty distribution methodology as allegedly inequitable toward Quebec members, and whether expanding the facts and time period changes the underlying cause of action.
• Reframing of the legal basis from discrimination-based claims to breach of contractual, statutory and fiduciary-type obligations as mandatary/administrator of the property of others.
• Legitimacy of broadening the proposed class description and period (including non-francophone works and pre-2019 conduct) without excluding originally covered members.
• Interaction between amendment of pleadings and prescription (limitation), including whether amendments can revive prescribed claims and whether “impossibility to act” could delay the running of time.
• Application of civil procedure principles (proportionality and judicial economy) to avoid duplicative parallel class proceedings arising from nearly identical authorization applications.

Factual background
The case arises from the way the Société canadienne des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SOCAN) collected and distributed public performance royalties for musical works broadcast on radio, particularly in Quebec. SOCAN is a non-profit collective rights management organization mandated to issue licences for public performance, communication and reproduction of musical and audiovisual works and to distribute the resulting royalties to rights holders. The plaintiff, 9057-0581 Québec inc., operating under the commercial name David Murphy & Cie, is a Quebec music publisher and SOCAN member. It alleges that SOCAN’s rules and mechanisms for allocating radio royalties unfairly disadvantaged members in Quebec over a significant period, including years before 2019. The original authorization application focused on a specific change in methodology: an expansion of the “recensement” radio station pool in May 2019 by adding nearly 200 Canadian stations, allegedly in a way that was disproportionate to the Quebec market. According to the plaintiff, this modification diluted the share of royalties attributable to French-language works broadcast in Quebec and resulted in Quebec francophone rights holders receiving substantially less than they should have during a defined period.

Original theory of the proposed class action
In the first version of the authorization application, the core factual allegation was that the May 2019 change to SOCAN’s radio station sampling base and royalty allocation methodology operated in a discriminatory and prejudicial way against Quebec francophone rights holders. The class was framed as persons, physical or legal, domiciled in Quebec, owning copyright in French-language musical works broadcast on radio in Quebec between 1 July 2019 and 31 December 2020, who had allegedly been deprived of a portion of the royalties due for those broadcasts. The legal theory relied heavily on anti-discrimination norms. The plaintiff invoked the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, arguing that SOCAN, as a federally regulated copyright collective and an enterprise operating in Quebec, could not lawfully engage in direct or indirect discrimination based on national origin or language in providing services and distributing royalties. The original application further alleged that once SOCAN recognized the discriminatory impact of the 2019 rule change and adopted a corrective modification in 2021 (including weighting radio plays in proportion to licence fees), it had a legal obligation to make retroactive adjustments for the prior period and to compensate affected rights holders. SOCAN allegedly refused to carry out such retroactive corrections, which the plaintiff characterised as an additional discriminatory and inequitable act.

Policy and contractual framework governing SOCAN’s obligations
The dispute unfolds against the backdrop of SOCAN’s contractual and regulatory obligations toward its members. Members sign an adhesion contract by which they assign their public performance rights to SOCAN in exchange for SOCAN’s undertaking to collect licence fees and distribute royalties. The plaintiff points to language in this adhesion contract in which SOCAN agrees to “do everything possible” to collect royalties payable for public performances and to remit to members, in accordance with its statutes, rules and regulations, the royalties derived from the authorization to perform the assigned works. The plaintiff also relies on SOCAN’s internal Regulation No. 1, particularly articles 6 and 7, which state that SOCAN distributes collected royalties “in a just and equitable manner” and ensures that all members receive equal treatment, without regard to type or genre of music. These internal provisions, in the plaintiff’s view, codify and concretize SOCAN’s obligations as mandatary, cessionary or administrator of the property of others under the Civil Code of Québec. The amended proceeding emphasizes that these obligations require SOCAN to act honestly and loyally toward all members and to avoid favouring some members to the detriment of others when designing and applying royalty distribution rules.

Shift from discrimination to contractual and mandate-based liability
Over time, the plaintiff reconsidered the optimal legal framing of the case. While the original application foregrounded statutory discrimination claims, the amended version narrows and “recentres” the legal syllogism on SOCAN’s contractual and mandate-based duties. In the amended application, the main causes of action alleged are: breach of SOCAN’s obligations under the adhesion contract with members; breach of duties as mandatary/administrator of the property of others under the Civil Code of Québec; and breach of SOCAN’s own regulatory commitments (notably the “juste et équitable” and equal-treatment clauses in Regulation No. 1). Discrimination-based causes of action under the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Quebec Charter are expressly de-emphasized or dropped as principal legal bases. However, the earlier allegations help provide context for the claim that SOCAN’s methodology had unequal impacts on Quebec members and that the organization should have corrected such inequities retrospectively once they were identified.

Expansion of the factual and temporal scope
The amended authorization application significantly broadens the factual and temporal reach of the proposed class action. Rather than concentrating solely on the specific 2019 addition of radio stations and the corresponding 2019–2020 period, the plaintiff now alleges that SOCAN’s royalty distribution rules may have been inequitable “for many years” before 2019. An economist’s preliminary analysis of royalty data for David Murphy & Cie and its clients suggested unexplained losses that appeared to pre-date the 2019 station-pool modification. While the expert’s hypothesis remains unconfirmed in the absence of SOCAN’s historical data, it raised suspicion that systemic inequities in the distribution rules existed earlier. The plaintiff also points out that ordinary market or programming fluctuations in radio play would not plausibly account for the magnitude of the observed variations in royalties across time, especially given that David Murphy & Cie aggregates rights and revenues for numerous clients in addition to its own catalogue. On this basis, the amended pleading alleges that the inequitable rules harmed Quebec rights holders long before the 2019 change and that the full extent of the prejudice cannot be assessed without SOCAN’s internal data.

Broadened description of the proposed class
Consistent with the expanded factual narrative, the class definition in the amended application is no longer limited to francophone works or to the 2019–2020 period. Instead, it encompasses all persons, physical or legal, domiciled in Quebec who received royalties from SOCAN before 15 November 2021 for the exploitation of musical works broadcast on Quebec radio stations, excluding broadcasts on Société Radio-Canada. This modification has two main effects. First, it widens the time frame to cover alleged inequities occurring before July 2019. Second, it includes rights holders of non-francophone works from Quebec, such as creators of anglophone, allophone or instrumental music, who allegedly may also have been disadvantaged by SOCAN’s rules. Importantly, the earlier subset of French-language rights holders during 2019–2020 remains encompassed within the new, broader class definition. The court notes that while this does add new putative members, it does not exclude those previously covered. The defendant may later contest whether the description is overly broad or unwieldy at the authorization hearing, but this is not, in itself, a reason to refuse the proposed amendments at this stage.

Procedural sequence and parallel proceeding
Procedurally, the timeline is central to the court’s reasoning. The plaintiff filed its original authorization application in September 2022. New counsel later took over. In February 2025, the plaintiff filed an amended authorization application (without first obtaining leave), reflecting the expanded factual case and reoriented legal theory. SOCAN opposed the amended application in March 2025, asserting that the changes introduced an entirely new claim, were contrary to the interests of justice and would revive prescribed causes of action. Shortly thereafter, in March 2025, the plaintiff and another proposed representative, Sébastien Fréchette, filed a separate authorization application in another file number (500-06-001370-259). That new application was said to be identical to the amended one and was brought solely to protect the rights of members allegedly not covered by the original 2022 application. In April 2025, the plaintiff finally filed a formal motion for permission to amend the original authorization application. The court recognized that the leave motion ought to have preceded, not followed, the filing of the amended application, but treated this sequence as a procedural irregularity that could be cured by ruling on the leave request.

Legal framework on amendments, class actions and proportionality
The court applies several strands of Quebec civil procedure. Article 585 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires that a representative in a class action obtain judicial authorization to modify a pleading, and existing jurisprudence confirms that this applies at the pre-authorization stage as well. The judge also recalls that class-action amendments must comply with the general rules on modification of proceedings, notably article 206 C.C.P., which allows amendments that do not unduly delay the case, are not contrary to the interests of justice, and do not result in a wholly new claim unrelated to the original one. Class-action-specific considerations also apply: amendments must remain compatible with the class action mechanism and the authorization criteria under article 575 C.C.P. The court emphasizes the overarching principle of proportionality (article 18 C.C.P.), under which parties and judges must ensure that procedural steps are proportionate, in cost and time, to the nature and complexity of the matter and to the aim of the proceeding. In practice, this means avoiding unnecessary duplication, multiplication of actions or procedural manoeuvres that excessively burden the civil justice system.

Is the amended application an “entirely new” claim?
The central procedural dispute is whether the amended authorization application constitutes an “entirely new” claim without connection to the original one. SOCAN argues that the underlying facts, the applicable rules of law and the group members are all different, such that the amendment should not be permitted. The court undertakes a qualitative, not purely quantitative, comparison. On the factual side, it acknowledges that the amended application “casts the net wider”: it no longer focuses exclusively on the 2019 addition of Canadian radio stations and the specific 2019–2020 period, and it alleges broader inequities affecting multiple categories of Quebec rights holders over an extended timeline. Nevertheless, the core events and themes of the original proceeding remain present. The amended application retains and elaborates upon the factual skeleton of the original claim, incorporating the same key episodes regarding SOCAN’s methodology, the contested 2019 modification and the subsequent 2021 correction. It does not excise or replace those facts; rather, it enriches them with additional allegations suggesting earlier, systemic inequities. On the legal side, although the amended pleading shifts emphasis away from discrimination statutes toward contract and mandate-based duties, the court notes that these duties were already referenced in embryonic form in the original application, which alleged that SOCAN, as mandatary/administrator of others’ property, owed duties of honesty, loyalty and non-preferential treatment under the Civil Code. The amended claim therefore develops an already-present legal theory rather than introducing a wholly foreign one. The common objective of both versions remains to obtain compensation for members allegedly deprived of royalties due to unfair distribution rules. As to the class definition, the court accepts that new members are added, but stresses that no previously included member is excluded. Overall, the judge concludes that the amended application is connected, in facts, law and proposed class, to the original proceeding and does not amount to a completely new, unrelated claim.

Interests of justice, duplication and proportionality
The court next considers whether the amendments are contrary to the interests of justice. SOCAN contends that allowing them would effectively revive prescribed claims and that no impossibility to act has been alleged that would delay prescription. The court, however, takes a more global, systemic view. It notes that if the amendments were refused, the parallel authorization application (file 500-06-001370-259), which is identical to the amended pleading, would proceed separately before the same judge. This would lead to parallel, duplicative proceedings on virtually the same facts and legal issues, increasing costs and consuming additional judicial resources. Such an outcome would be contrary to the principle of proportionality and the proper administration of justice. By allowing the amendments in the original file, the court can manage the matter more efficiently within a single proceeding.

Prescription and alleged “impossibility to act”
The limitation issue receives careful, but deliberately preliminary, treatment. Under article 2880 of the Civil Code of Québec, prescription generally begins to run when the right of action arises, and amendments cannot revive rights that are clearly prescribed. SOCAN argues that any claims relating to inequitable royalty distributions prior to November 2021 are barred, given the three-year prescription period triggered, it says, by the 2021 modification of the rules and their first application. The plaintiff, by contrast, pleads that it lacked access to the internal data needed to detect earlier inequities and that members were in a position of dependence and trust vis-à-vis SOCAN, reasonably believing that their interests were being properly protected. The amended application specifically alleges that only SOCAN holds the data required to verify whether the rules were equitable and that members were therefore in a factual impossibility to act, within the meaning of article 2904 C.C.Q., which suspends prescription where the victim could not act, even with diligence, due to lack of knowledge of the facts generating the right. At this stage, the court finds that prescription is not “clear on the face” of the record. The allegations of limited access to data, dependence on SOCAN and potential impossibility to detect the inequities render the limitation analysis fact-intensive and unsuitable for summary resolution on a motion to amend. The judge therefore defers the determination of prescription and of the application of article 2908 C.C.Q. (class-action-specific suspension of prescription for the class) to a later stage, after fuller evidence can be considered.

Outcome and parties’ relative success
In the result, the Superior Court grants the plaintiff’s motion for permission to amend the authorization application and rejects SOCAN’s opposition to the amendments. By doing so, the court confirms that the broadened factual allegations, reformulated legal theory and expanded class description can proceed within the existing authorization file. The judge expressly finds that the amendments do not create a wholly new claim unrelated to the initial proceeding, do not unduly delay the case, and are not, at this point, contrary to the interests of justice. The court also notes that allowing the amendments avoids inefficient parallel litigation and better respects the proportionality principle. The successful party in this procedural judgment is therefore the plaintiff, 9057-0581 Québec inc. (David Murphy), whose request to amend is granted while SOCAN’s opposition is dismissed. However, the judgment does not rule on the merits of the underlying class action, nor does it fix any amount of damages, compensation or costs in favour of the plaintiff or the class. The order on costs is left as “frais de justice à suivre,” meaning that no specific monetary award or quantified costs are determined at this stage, and the total amount granted in favour of the successful party cannot yet be ascertained.