In Ontario, the issue of access to justice and how the courts operate and treat various civil and criminal matters have come under scrutiny in recent years. Costs for legal representation have soared, basically pushing access to justice out of reach for middle-class Ontarians. It is believed that an average three day civil trial in Ontario costs approximately $60,000, a figure most Ontarians find unaffordable.
Small Claims Courts Remain the Busiest, Most Accessible Courts in Ontario
Many Ontarians however do turn to the small claims court to deal with their legal disputes. Forty-three percent of all civil actions commenced in the fiscal year 2007-2008 (for which the most recent figures are available) were filed in small claims court. In this same year, a total of 63,533 cases were started in small claims courts across Ontario. Up until now, the monetary limit for small claims court actions remained at $10,000, despite other provinces such as Alberta and British Columbia moving their monetary limits up to $25,000 in the past couple years.
Small claims courts can offer judgments on various types of disputes, such as contracts, sale of goods, debt collection, vehicle damage, product liability, among other types of cases. One can also attend a small claims court to obtain an order for the return of an item that is wrongfully in the possession of another party, e.g. writ of delivery. One can also use the small claims courts to enforce judgments up to its monetary limit through various means available by the rules.
However, at this time, small claims courts cannot offer equitable relief, which would include such things as obtaining an order to get somebody to do something or stop doing something. However damages from these actions or inactions can be assessed and awarded in the small claims court. For example, damages in these cases can include the loss of business income as a result of a commercial landlord unlawfully locking out a business from its own operations, but the court cannot order the commercial landlord to allow the tenant re-entry.
Osborne Report on Civil Justice Reform Improves Access to Justice
In November 2007, a report on Civil Justice Reform by the Hon. Justice Coulter Osborne was released by the Attorney-General. This report was one among many on how the court system should be restructured to both improve access and streamline case management. Among his recommendations about the small claims court system in Ontario, the first was to raise the monetary limit of the court to $25,000. Other recommendations included appointing more judges (or getting existing judges to spend more time in the court), as well as to make recommendations to the Civil Rules Committee and the Law Society of Upper Canada to permit licensed paralegals to represent clients at the first stage of appeal of a small claims judgment to the Divisional Court.
These recommendations were welcomed by the paralegal community, which in Ontario is comprised of a regulated and licensed body of paraprofessionals that have legal training and can represent clients in small claims court, as well as most administrative tribunals and boards in Ontario. It was recently announced that as of January 1, 2010, small claims courts will raise their monetary limits in Ontario to $25,000, which will open the doors to more cases that can be settled this way.
The report predicts that with the monetary increase, there will be a substantial increase in the number of filings in this court. Based on the figures for 2005-2006, Osborne cites that an increase to $25,000 would lead to an increase in at least 6,555 filing based on that year's figures alone. Further many cases filed in small claims court have been filed on the basis of waiving any amounts over and above the jurisdictional limits, so it is actually difficult to estimate how many more cases this increase would bring.
Angela Browne - Angela Browne is an independent Paralegal practising in the Niagara Region, of the Province of Ontario (Canada). She is a published ...
