Archive for October, 2017

The Enforcement of judgments in Ontario – An Overview [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

You have obtained a Judgment/Order, but the other party refuses to pay. You will now be required to engage the process that allows you to enforce your judgment. This lecture provides an overview of the enforcement process in Ontario.

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

Link to Ministry of Attorney General guide for enforcement proceedings in small claims court:
https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/courts/guides/After_Judgement_Guide_to_Getting_Results_EN.html

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

You have fought a case in civil court in Ontario, won a judgment against the other party that requires the other party to pay you certain amount of money... you asked the other party to give you that money and they refused to pay. What do you do next? How do you go about collecting your money? This procedure of collecting your debt, collecting your money is called the enforcement of judgments, and today we’ll talk about the process of enforcing a judgment in Ontario and we’ll give you an overview of this complicated time consuming and costly process.

We begin with our disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer paralegal or the Law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals.

We’ll discuss today the applicable legislation or at least some of the applicable legislation or rules that govern the mechanism of enforcement of judgments or orders. We’ll talk about some of the types of enforcement proceedings that you can undertake. We’ll talk about examination in aid of execution what is that examination and how do you go about conducting that examination? We’ll talk about, briefly, the enforcement process in small claims court, we’ll talk about some of the potential changes that may come in force with respect to the enforcement mechanism in Ontario.

Applicable Legislations

Number one, you want to keep in mind is called Execution Act. This act provides for the appointments of sheriffs and how do they go about doing their job, what is the limit or extent of their authority... execution act talks about that. Rules of civil procedure, we have talked about it a number of times, these rules are essential with respect to any civil matters in Ontario. So, what do the rules say about the enforcement of judgment or orders. We’ll discuss that briefly. Rules of small claims court, if your matter is in small claims court. Bankruptcy Insolvency Act, that may apply in certain circumstances, so, that may be relevant legislation. Wages act may also apply especially if you’re if you’re trying to garnish someone’s wages. Personal property and Security Act is another legislation that may be applicable and there may be other legislation that are not covered in today’s discussion.

So, types of enforcement... how do you go about enforcing the judgment there are a few ways to do that the most common is garnishment. You garnish the money from a third party. Writ of seizure and sale of personal property, writ of seizure and sale of land, writ of sequestration and receivership... these are some of the ways in which you can enforce your judgement or order we’ll briefly talk about each one of these now.

So garnishment, what is garnishment? Garnishment is that you claim money that is owed to your debtor by someone else, so, let’s say you’ve got a judgment against John and someone else owes money to John. Then you actually go after that third party and basically get a court order asking the third party to give you the money that they owe to John. Not to give it to John, but give it to you. So that’s called a garnishment. What are some of the common examples of garnishment? You can garnish someones wages, so, essentially, you find out where that person work, you get a garnishment order, you you serve it on the employer, and the employer is obligated under law to give you the money... and give you the money, meaning that they will they will provide the money in court, and then you get the money from the court... but essentially, rather than employer paying that amount of money to that debtor, their employee, they paid into court and then you can get your money from that. So, it’s one of the common ways of garnishing, it’s called garnishing wages. If the person is not an employee, as a contractor, that person may still be owed money by the company that they’re working for and so you can garnish those fees for services from that company. Another debtor could be, you know, a company has accounts receivable. So, they don’t have any cash at hand but they have provided services or products to third parties and are expecting to get money... and so that accounts receivable, you get that information and then you contact those parties and require them to pay you the money as opposed to giving the money to the debtor. The money can also be garnished from a bank account, so, if you know that the person, the debtor, has a bank account and there is sufficient money, that you can have that money garnished... then you can get a garnishment order and require the bank to pay you that money. So, those are some of the common examples off garnishing the money... if you know that someone else has to pay the money to the debtor and you can go after that third party.

There are limits in garnishment you want to keep in mind and with respect to that, wages act is the one that I mentioned you may want to look at that. There are some moneys that you cannot garnish, for example someone’s pension, you cannot garnish it... if the person is receiving social assistance you cannot garnish it, if the person is receiving employment insurance benefits then you cannot garnish those and there may be others, so there are limits on garnishment and you can look at the wages act to figure out what respect to the wages what monies can be garnished and what cannot be.

Writ of seizure and sale of personal property, essentially, what it means is that the debtor, your debtor, has certain personal property. You take over that personal property. the possession of that property... as long as it’s not money or land. So, you take that over, and then that property is sold in a public auction and the monies are recovered and paid back to you. You cannot do it yourself... essentially, it’s done through local enforcement office of that county, which is the sheriff of that county. You contact them, there’s a whole process that you have to follow with respect to requiring the sheriff to go and get the possession of that property and then sell it in the public auction and then give you the money that that they recover. Keep in mind, a few things with respect to this, each sheriff’s office has their specific processes and so you want to be clear about those processes... you need to fill out the forms, give the costs, or certain fees to the sheriff’s office to proceed with the execution off the writ of seizure and sale. With respect to personal property, the requirement of sheriff’s office may be very specific. They may require you to provide the specifics of the property that you want them to take possession of. So, if there are computers at the debtor’s property, then they may ask you the, you know, the more detailed description of those computers. So, those computer can be identified correctly. If there is a sofa that you may want the the sheriff to possess... they may ask you the colour and the size of the sofa and whatnot. So, the identification of the specific item is is necessary for the sheriff’s office, so, you will be required to provide that information. It is not up to Sheriff to go inside that property, that person’s property, and pick up whatever item is there... that’s not how the writ of seizure and sale of personal property takes place. You also want to keep in mind that the items that you may have thought that this person, the debtor has, who owns those items? So, for instance, if the person has, the debtor has at his or her office certain computers or printers... does that debtor own those printers or computers or are they on lease... because if they are leased items then the sheriff will not be able to take those items and sell them because they’re not even owned by the debtor. So it is important for you to have a very clear knowledge of what items you can take from the debtor and then direct the sheriff to take those items, sell them in a public auction, and then give you your money, your debt.

The second item is writ of seizure and sale of land... which is similar to the writ of seizure and sale of personal property, except that this is for the land. Again, in this case, you filed a writ with the respective county in which the person may have land or may intend to buy land. So, you can even file a writ in a county where you believe that the person will buy a property in the future because what happens is, once you file that writ, it in encumbers that person’s property... So, what that means is even if the person buys a property in that county in the future, the person will not be able, the debtor will not be able to sell the property until your writ is clear... until your payment is made. So, just because the person does not have a property, does not mean that you can’t file the writ, you can still file the writ but then you have to figure out if the person is going to to buy a property in that specific county, because it goes county by county. You can’t fall a writ in the entire Ontario in one go. So, you file the writ, and that puts sort of a lien on that property and when the person sells that property and you get to your share... provided that there is sufficient money coming out of the equity in that land. The other thing that it is that you can also force the sale of that land and in with respect to the land, there is a certain time period for which the sheriff has to wait, so for the sheriff to take possession of the property... usually, it’s about four months after you have filed the writ that sheriff can take over the possession of the property and then I believe it’s about six months after the filing of the writ then the sheriff can actually sell the property to recover the moneys.

Now, you want to be very clear whether the debtor has sufficient equity in the land because if there’s no equity then you’re not going to get your debt regardless of the sale of the land. So, if it’s a million dollar property but it has a mortgage of, you know, $980,000 that $980,000 is the bank’s money. Or the mortgagees money and only $20,000 may be the equity for the debtor and so, if your debt is you know $200,000, you’re not going to get your money out of it just because the value of the property is a million dollars. So it is important for you to understand whether or not, whether the debtor has sufficient equity to discharge your debt. You have to consider secured creditors. And a secure creditor, an example of secure creditor, is the bank in this case, because a secured predator is the one that has some collateral over the loan or the debt that they have given to this person. So, in a common example is your house, when you mortgage your house, if you don’t pay your mortgage payment, the bank or the mortgagee can take the possession of the house and sell it to realize their debt... so, that’s a secure creditor. Another example could be when you buy or finance a car and if you don’t pick, make your payment car payments, the financing company can take over the car and realize their debt. So, where there are collaterals for the debt those are called secured creditors. So, if you are taking possession of the property or the land and they are secured creditors, they get their money first. If you are an unsecured creditor, you are further down the line, you’re at the end and if if the secured creditors are paid and there’s no money left for the unsecured creditors, you don’t get any money. You also want to consider that there may be other creditors, unsecured creditors, that this debtor owes money to and if their debt is registered, if there writ is registered, then, regardless of who forces the sale of the property everyone gets their money pro-rated. So, if there is sufficient money to discharge everyone’s debt, then that’s fine but if there is insufficient money then the sheriff will pro-rate the money and distribute the funds accordingly.

Writ of Sequestration is, again, enforced by the sheriff. It happens usually where the Sheriff takes the possession of the property and holds the property, usually where there is some rental income expected... that could be an example of a property. Writ of Sequestration is usually done when the matter is still being disputed, being resolved by the court, in the meantime, the sheriff has taken the possession, so, that the property’s in control and eventually when the matter is decided, those monies are distributed accordingly.

Appointment of a receiver. There are two kinds of receivers that could be appointed in Ontario, private and court appointed or focused in court appointed receiver. You hear this term in the newspapers a lot and you hear this with respect to companies that going into receivership... and essentially a receiver is a regulated person or a body and the purpose of the receiver is that they maximize debtor’s assets in a way to help the secured creditors. So, you take control or possession, the receiver takes control and possession of the debtors assets and then it deals with them in such a way that the secured creditors could get most of their, if not all of their loans or debts back. So, essentially it’s for the interest of secured creditors... but once the secured creditors are paid and if there is money left, then unsecured creditors are paid as well.

So, a question will come to your mind that you got through this court process and obtained a judgment, but you don’t know whether that debtor has any assets and how do you go about figuring that out? The rules allow you to examine that person and figure out what kind of assets that person may have, so, that you can go and get your judgment enforced... and that examination is called examination in aid of execution. Execution is essentially all of those enforcement processes that were talked about, they are all execution processes. So, this is an examination to help you execute your order or your judgment... and rules of civil procedure rule 60.18 to 60.20 deals with the examination and ease of execution... and rule 60 in general is the rule that talks about the entire enforcement mechanism in the Rules of Civil Procedure. So, the purpose of the examination is that you determine the debtor’s assets, so, essentially what you can require in that examination is the debtor to come and bring all the bank statements, banking information, their income statements, their tax returns, their property statements, any debts that they’re owed, anything and everything to do with their financing... you can require them to bring that information, you can review that information, and figure out where this person may have assets or money that you can go after and then materialize your collection of debt. Just, sort of a word of caution, in the examination is that obviously you have this right and if the debtor is unwilling to pay you the money, the debtor may not attend the examination, even if you have served notice on that person to come and attend the examination. So there is also a process for that. Generally, you have to serve notice a few times and if the person does not show up, you can seek a contempt order from the court... for the person failing to come to the examination and that contempt order can allow the court to then give an order, issue a warrant of arrest for that person, and the person can be arrested and forced to attend the examination. So, the examination process can be pretty helpful, especially if the person has any assets that you can find out and then and then go after.

Small claims court enforcement is not much different then the superior court process... there’s an excellent guide post by the Ministry of Attorney General, I’ve provided a link here and this link is also below in the description of this lecture. By all means review that, it’s a pretty detailed and simplified explanation of how you proceed with enforcement in small claims court. As I said, the enforcement process, the mechanism is complex... it’s complicated, it’s hard to follow, it’s costly, so, there are some potential changes the Ontario province may bring in third parties or nonprofit parties which will be regulated entities who may be given the task to enforce the judgments or orders on creditors behalf... that may happen, it already happens in British Columbia and Alberta and a recent approach that has taken place in 2016 is court supervised land sales which is already permitted in the rules but it was not utilized as much... and this is a process in which rather than using the sheriff use the court to supervise the sale of land, it is generally considered to be a bit more efficient process and less costly and that could be another way of enforcing your judgment.

So, in conclusion, what you want to keep in mind is, first of all, the caution that you don’t want to spend good money to chase the bad money and that’s the idea that even before you go after suing someone in court, you want to have some understanding of even if you’re successful would you be able to get your money back from the debtor? Does the debtor have sufficient assets or solvency, so, that you can actually go and enforce your judgment because it may not be worthwhile for you to expend the time and effort and money to just get a simple paper judgment, which you cannot go enforce and so, spending good money for bad, is never a good idea and so you should consider that even before you commence a court action. Also, keep in mind that the enforcement of judgments is a complicated process and it’s expensive and time consuming, and you can spend this time and effort and money and you still may not be able to get your judgment. So, you’ve got to be careful about the enforcement process understand it better and then, if needed, you should seek legal expertise to get your judgments enforced.

I hope this gives you a good understanding of a broader understanding of how the judgments are enforced in Ontario, love to hear from you with respect to any feedback that you may have about the process, how fair the process is, is it a fair process for people who have been harmed, have obtained a judgment and are still not able to get those judgment enforced... if you have any questions or comments, please contact us, we always love to hear from you and thank you for watching.

Scheduling an Injunction Motion in Ontario – A Step by Step Guide [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

This is the second lecture regarding an injunction motion in Ontario civil courts. This lecture explains the procedural steps in scheduling an injunction motion in Ontario.

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

In yesterdays lecture, we had talked about an injunction... we had provided you with an overview of what an injunction is, what are some of the types of injunctions, and what is the concept of getting an injunctive relief in a civil proceeding in Ontario. Today, we’ll talk about some of the procedural steps in the event that you wish to seek an injunctive relief, how do you actually go about scheduling that motion in a court and then go and argue that motion?

We begin, as always, with our usual disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or paralegal or contact the law side of Upper Canada.

We will explain the process of scheduling a motion for injunction in five steps. First step is that you must review the applicable legislation and the rules to determine what is the appropriate process for you to bring about your motion for injunction. In the second step, you must review the applicable practice directions which further modify the rules and so, you need to understand what are the specific requirements in the court that you are going to bring your motion for injunction and understand the process in that specific court. Then, you must determine what kind of relief, what kind of injunctive relief are you seeking... because depending upon the kind of relief you will be seeking, the process of scheduling and arguing the motion may vary, so, you need to understand that and then you attend or contact the court office to actually schedule your injunction motion and then finally, you prepare the materials that are necessary for you to schedule the injunction motion and argue it and then get the relief that you are seeking.

So, step number one, you must review the legislation, and the rules the first legislation that you want to review is called the course of justice act and specifically, sections 101-107... you can Google this, I have provided a link here and then you will also find the links in my lecture underneath the description in the youtube. I’ve opened the course of justice act, you can Google it, and if you scroll down... over here, interlocutory orders, which an injunction and an order for injunction, is an interlocutory order... so interlocutory orders are covered in section 101 to 107 and you must review the sections and understand that in your specific circumstances what are the rules that apply and then, so that you are clear about the about the legislation. An example of this is 101 sub 1, “in this fair court of justice, an interlocutory injunction or a mandatory order, may be granted or a receiver and a manager may be appointed by an interlocutory order where the peers do judge of the court to be just or convenient to do so”. So this section, 101 sub 1, is in fact, providing a judge the authority to issue the interlocutory order or the mandatory order that you are seeking... and then the nature of that relief that you’re seeking is really in the discretion of the judge as subsection 2 explains, “an order in subsection one may include such terms as are considered just” so it’s a very broad discretion for the judge to award you the injunctive relief that you are seeking... and if you scroll down, Section 102 deals with injunction and labour disputes and if your injunction is relating to a labor dispute that you can review this section... Section 103 is about certificate of a pending litigation. There’s another section that is about interim recovery, yes here it is... section 104 interim order for recovery of personal property and so on and so forth. So, review Courts of Justice Act, it’s important for you to review the clickable sections 101-107 being the most important ones.

Rules of civil procedure, as you may know, from previous lectures that I have given on Rules of Civil Procedure... these are the rules that provide how a specific action proceeding is handled in the courts of Ontario and so, you must review rules of civil procedure and specifically rules 37 and then rules 40-45. Rule 37 is the one that deals with all kinds of motions... an injunction motion being one of those. So, it covers all kinds of motions, so, you must review those and then 40 to 45 deal with motion with respect to an interlocutory order. So, you can also find the rules of civil procedure online and if you look at rules 40, 40.1 to 45.03 the heading is preservation of Rights and pending litigation... and injunctive relief is really an order in a pending litigation, so that specific motion or the order that you’re seeking comes under these rules... and again, if you briefly look at the rules here, 40.01, an interlocketery injunction or mandatory order under section 101 or 102 of the Courts of Justice Act, may be obtained on a motion to a judge by a party to a pending or intended proceeding”... it’s very important to understand that, that you can actually commence a motion, you can bring a motion, for an injunctive relief even when you have not commenced the court action. So intended proceeding, you have not commenced the proceeding yet, but you are seeking the order even before then or pending which is already ongoing. So, this this rule deals with what you need to do, how do you need to understand what is the court process in granting an injunction.

Another one that you want to keep in mind is 40.02 sub 1 an interlocutory injunction or a mandatory order may be granted on motion without notice, for a period not exceeding ten days, and if you have reviewed my lecture on injunction, you will understand that what is a concept of an interlocutory injunction and I had mentioned that you can actually bring it on with or without notice... but if you bring on on it without notice basis the time period for which it is granted is really short. So, the rule specifies that it cannot be for more than ten days so you’ve got to review these rules to make sure that you understand them and then you want to review any other legislation that may apply to your specific case, so that if there’s anything else that that legislation specifies, you’re following that with respect to the scheduling and attendance of your motion.

Step number two review practice directions. I have a separate lecture on practice directions it will be a good idea for you to review it, if you haven’t already but practice directions are essentially further modifications or fine tuning of the rules that we just talked about, the rules of civil procedure, and those practice directions may vary from court to court. So, what you must do is, you should review practice directions province wide, so that the practice directions that apply across the province of Ontario... you understand those and once you Google this, you will get practice directions for Ontario, province wide... they’re available online... and then you must review practice directions that are regional because what may be the court’s process in Newmarket court may not be at the same process in Toronto court. So, you must review the specific Practice Direction for the reason in which you’re bringing your motion. I’ve given the link here for Toronto practice directions, but other practice directions are also available, I think in my previous lectures, I’ve shown you what these practice directions look like but this is essentially the practice direction for Toronto region. It deals with civil actions, applications, motions and procedural matters and you can review... it’s not a very lengthy document but it is important for you because if you don’t follow those practice directions then you may have a difficulty in getting your motion heard.

Step number three determine the type of relief and in my previous lecture, as I indicated, that there are generally four kinds of injunctive relief that you are seeking interim, interlocutory, permanent and mandatory and I’m not going to discuss that here today but what’s important for you to understand is that depending upon the kind of relief that you are seeking, your process may be different. So for an interim, interim injunctive relief, on a without notice basis as I just read you the rule, it can’t be granted for more than ten days. An interlocutory is not much different than interim, except that the time period for grounding the relief may be longer... so, review the other lecture if you’re not clear, but once you determine the kind of relief that you are seeking, your process may be different. So, it’s important for you to figure that out. Then you contact or attend the court office. To schedule a date and time for the motion, how do you do that is varies from court to court. So, I’ll give an example of Toronto... in Toronto the process is, you contact the court office, ideally, you actually show up at 396 University on the tenth floor, where the staff is available, get your ticket, line up, go to the motion scheduling clerk, and then request that you need to bring an urgent motion a motion for injunction and then the process in Toronto, if you have read the practice directions by now, you will know that you can only get your injunction motion heard if you attend a C.P.C. session. Civil Practice Court Session and I have a supper lecture on C.P.C. if you’re not clear what that is and kindly review that. So you attend C.P.C.... so, what are the steps? You actually line up, you go to the motion scheduling clerk, and you say, “I have an urgent motion to bring and I need to see a judge today, tomorrow, you know what time?. So, depending upon the urgency of your case, the clerk will directly accordingly. So, if you need to see a judge that very day it may be possible, there may be a judge on duty that day... if you need to see the judge, if your matter is so urgent that you need to see the judge within a few hours then the motion scheduling clerk or the manager of the court may be able to arrange that.

Otherwise, the court will direct you to attend a C.P.C. civil practice court and there’s a process for you to schedule your attendance in C.P.C. but because of the urgency of your situation, the court staff may squeeze you in on the next C.P.C. which may be happening, it happens I believe twice a week in Toronto, so you can come and attend on C.P.C. So, when you attend C.P.C., then you are basically telling, explaining to a judge why do you need an urgent motion, what is the nature of your issue... you’re not arguing anything, you’re basically explaining why do you want an urgent motion for injunction to be heard and then that judge will then provide you with a date when your motion will be heard. So, it all comes down to your urgency of this motion and this is the process in Toronto... whereas in Newmarket the process may be different, I believe I had dealt with Newmarket Court recently too, and they have every Thursday, they have a judge available who can who can hear urgent motions or injunctive injunction motions. So, you can show up basically, with your material Thursday morning and then ask for the staff to introduce you to one of the judges who will be there to deal with your matters. So, every court office has a different mechanism and I believe the Toronto has sort of the most availability in terms of dealing with these because of just the sheer volume of disputes that come, so, if you have read the rules, you know that you can commence a proceeding anywhere in Ontario. So, if your matter is really urgent and you can’t get ahold of a judge in any other jurisdiction, you may want to come to Toronto and see if you can meet with a judge and duty and then have your injunction motion heard.

And, in terms of the procedures, when you are, let’s say in Toronto court, you cannot attend before a judge for an injunction motion even on an urgent basis without actually having a court file number because that Clark has to put you in the system of the court and they have to issue your court file number... because you have not commenced your court action, you have not issued a statement of claim, if that’s your situation. you don’t have a court file number, so, what you have to do is you have to provide an undertaking to the court staff that you will commence your proceeding whether it’s an application or an action forthwith usually within ten days... and that’s pursuant to rule 37.17 of the rules of civil procedure and only then the court staff will issue you a court file number stating in their computer that it’s an intended proceeding and charge you the fee for the motion and schedule it. So, the process may vary from court to court... so you must understand what the process is in your specific court.

Once you have the date scheduled then you go on and prepare your material. You obviously need a notice of motion if you’ve read Rule 37 and that’s essential whether you need to serve that motion or simply file with the court will depend upon whether your motion is on notice or without notice. Then, you have to decide how you are presenting your evidence to the judge when you are going to argue your motion. Is it by an affidavit, is it a viva voce, which means oral evidence? Are you bringing in witnesses to provide evidence and you need to figure that out.

You have to decide or determine whether a factum is required, if it’s a very urgent motion that needs to be dealt with the same day or something you may not need to bring in a factum for the judge but in other motions which which are on notice and may require some time for you to prepare. a factum may be necessary. When you attend before the judge, it’s a smart idea to have your draft order ready... what you are asking the judge, what kind of order you want the judge to give... and it’s a good idea to have that ready and you can present it to the judge, if the judge believes that you have a valid argument and your request must be granted.

You must also check whether you need to confirm your motion, if your motion has been scheduled. For the days down the line. then the Practice Direction and the rules may require that you confirm the motion two or three days. usually three days before the date that it is being heard and if you don’t confirm it, your motion is not heard. So it’s an important step and you want to make sure that in your specific case, do you need to confirm the motion or not. So, the bottom line is that no matter how strong your case for injunction is, if you are not clear about the process of how do you go about scheduling that injunction motion and present your case before a judge... you will have huge problems... and oftentimes these rules are a bit complex, they vary from court to court and so you must put in time and effort before you actually show up in the court and say that, “I want my motion to be heard”... understand the rules, understand the processes before hand.

I hope that gives you a practical understanding of the steps that you need to take in order for you to bring a motion for injunction... please provide us with your feedback or any questions you may have and will be happy to address those. Thank you for watching.

Civil Injunctions in Ontario – An Overview [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

What is an injunction; what is the purpose of an injunctive order; what is the test for a court to grant an injunction and what are some of the common injunctions in Ontario’s civil system?

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

Link to the Supreme Court of Canada case on granting an injunction – https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1290/index.do

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone, this Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

Today, we’ll talk about civil injunction in Ontario and we’ll provide you with an overview of what injunctions are. Sometimes, you will read in the newspapers that the court has granted an injunction to a party and what do we exactly mean by that and how are the injunctions granted? So, we’ll cover that topic in today’s discussion.

We begin with our disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal or contact the Law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals.

We’ll talk about what is an injunction, I’ll explain the concept, we’ll talk about different types of injunctions. I will explain to you what is the test for a court to actually grant an injunction and we’ll talk about some of the common injunctions that the courts have granted or lawyers use to get certain orders. So what is an injunction? It’s actually an order from a court, which is prohibiting a party from doing something or requiring the party to do something, so either restraining someone from doing something or imposing a positive duty obligation on someone to do something. So, the injunctions are either prohibited in nature or mandatory in nature, so, it’s restraining somebody to do something are requiring someone to do something. That’s what an injunction is.

So, how do we understand this? Let’s take an example. In an ideal world, when you would have a dispute, your dispute arises, at eight o’clock in the morning, you show up at the court at 9 o’clock. you find a Judge, right at nine fifteen... you present your case to the judge, provide all the evidence, the other side provides all of their evidence the judge, the judge hears the whole case, conducts a trial and by the afternoon you have a judgement that gives the final verdict from the judge, deciding on the merits of your case, and whatever the rights or damages that are flowing from that decision.

So, that is an ideal situation, but in the real world that’s not how the judicial system operates. In the real world, when you have a dispute with another party, you have to draft and file a statement of claim, you have to share the statement claim on the other side... then, the other side, the defendant will have thirty days, forty days, sixty days or so, to file their statement of defense. Then you have to exchange evidence, both parties have to exchange more evidence, then conduct examinations for discovery, if necessary... and then they end up going to trial where the matter is adjudicated and the judge provides his or her decisions. So, this whole process, by the time you get to a trial, in Ontario it maye take two years, three years, or sometimes longer for you to get through all of those steps and get to the matter of adjudicated and get a judgment. So, it takes a long time and then there could be circumstances, in which by the time you get to a trial and you succeed, the harm that is done to you cannot be cured or cannot be compensated properly by money. So, what is the value of then doing that court action for a number of years, when even when you succeed, you’re not getting a proper remedy out of this. So, that’s where the injunction comes into play.

A live example of this could be that you live in a neighborhood... a developer buys a property close to your property and then that property has a number of old trees one hundred years old or important, significant species of trees... and the developer is planning to cut down those trees and build a condo. So, in an ordinary course of things, you have to bring a statement of claim and go through that process which may take two or three years and by the time the court may decide that the developer has no right to cut down those trees... the trees were cut three years ago. So, how do you prevent that from happening? The only way you can do that is by asking for an injunction and getting an injunction. So, essentially you go to court and you say that this developer is going to cut these old trees and these are the issues and we want you, the court, to issue an order and tell or compel the developer do not cut the trees, until we have this matter at trial and it is adjudicated... and then, whatever the court decides. So, we want you to maintain that status quo because if the trees are cut, then there is no value in me having that trial and being successful at a judgment because the judgement will primarily be a paper judgment and trees are gone. So, that’s as an example of where an injunctive relief may be an a appropriate approach to deal with that.

So, in that situation, remember that when the court is granting an injunction, the court is not deciding on the merits of your case... the court is only trying to either maintain the status quo until the matter is tried and adjudicated and the decision is made... or even before, if the matter is disposed of or concluded by other means, right? So that’s the purpose of an injunction that you can get an order prior to the final adjudication of your claim.

There are different types of injunctions. This first one is called an interim injunction and it could be, you could ask for an interim injunction with or without notice to the other parties. So, in the case where you’re seeking an interim injunction, you could actually you have not commenced a court action you have not issued anything... you could simply show up at court, with your evidence, without even telling the defendants that you’re asking for this relief and then you unilaterally go to the judge and basically say that you want this interim injunction because the issue is so urgent that there’s not sufficient time to put other parties on notice and ask them to show up. So, you showed up by yourself and you ask the court to give this order. So, you know in this situation, if the injunction is granted the court requires you to have a full disclosure of all the facts and evidence... but even if the court grants the injunction, the injunction is granted for a very a short period. Usually, in Ontario, for about ten days or so... so, that that allows you time... now, you got your injunction, served it on the defendant and now you come back to the court and argue have a lengthy discussion with the court both sides present their arguments and then get either an extension of that injunction or, you know, your injunction is no longer granted further. So, interim junction, it’s really for a short period of time usually for about ten days.

Second comes the interlocutory Junction which is similar to interim injunction. The only difference is that once you get an interim injunction, which is for about ten days, now you come back and you may have to ask for an interlocutory injunction... in which the parties are now present, the arguments are more thorough, there’s a more detailed discussion, maybe more evidence, and the court is now looking at the issue in a bit more detail... and so if the interlocutory injunction is granted, it is usually longer, for a longer period, than the interim injunction and usually you may get the interlocutory injunction up to the time that the trial takes place because the trial is when the matter will be adjudicated and the court will decide who’s right and who’s wrong. So, you may get an interlocutory injunction up to trial or up to the final disposition because sometimes the matter could get resolved prior to trial, so proof by all disposition off that matter. So that’s that’s an interlocutory injunction.

Third category, third type, is called a permanent injunction and as the name implies, the injunction is permanent, the order is permanent, and usually you get permanent injunction after the matter is finally adjudicated. So, in the example of our tree, once you have for two years or so, you have fought this case you go to trial and the judge agrees with you that the trees should not be cut, then, the judge can issue a permanent injunction requiring the developer not to cut the trees. So, that’s usually granted after final adjudication... it’s called permanent injunction.

And mandatory injunction, as the name implies, requires someone to act positively. It’s not easily granted... it’s actually rarely granted and based on the nature of relief, most of the time it is permanent. One example that I can you give of a mandatory injunction is, for example, let’s say that around the coast of British Columbia there was an oil spill and it’s causing harm to the marine life and different parties are blaming each other and there’s a court auction that is underway with respect to whose fault it is, who’s liable for what, but in the meantime, you know, the ministry of environment may require, may ask the court to issue a mandatory injunction requiring certain parties to clean up the spill because the ongoing harm to the marine life needs to be prevented immediately and that cannot wait for two or three years or something. So, in that situation, the court may grant a mandatory injunction requiring a party or parties to do something positive. So, positive means they now actually have to go and get arrangement and get that site, that area of the sea cleaned from the spillage and that’s called a mandatory injunction.

What is the test for injunction, how do the courts decide whether an injunction should be granted in a specific case? It’s based on a three part test, which is stipulated in a Supreme Court of Canada case called R.J.R. McDonald case... you type it on Google, you will see this case, R.J.R. McDonald. I’ve put the link here... and that case has three tests. Number one, you have to show as the plaintiff, that you have a prima facie case. Number two, you have to show that there is potentially irreparable harm that will be caused if the injunction is not granted and then the balance of convenience is in your favor. So, let’s look at, you know, these three text really briefly very quickly. So Prima Facie case, what does that mean? Fundamentally, what it means is the court is going to look at your evidence and decide whether your case, which will be adjudicated three years, four years from now, is not a frivolous case, it’s not a vexatious case. So, the court is not deciding whether you have merits... they’re not deciding on the merits of your case, but the court is looking at based on the evidence, whether it makes sense that you have a case that is not frivolous or vexatious. So, that’s generally, if you have a valid case, it’s not a difficult burden to meet. So, the first part of the test is usually easily overcome.

In some cases, the court will require you to establish a strong enough prima facie case... which is different then just a prima facie case. One example in which that may happen is if you are seeking an injunction against a former employee of your company because in that situation, you may be asking the court not for that employee, not to compete against you, not to open a competing business or something like that, and it’s a significant restraint on that person to his or her living. So, in that situation the court may require you to establish a strong prima facie case. In some cases, the court may require you to establish that there is actually a serious issue to be tried. So, all these three strengths, prima facie case, strong prima facie case, or serious issue to be tried, these are sort of three separate categories and depending on your specific situation, court may require you to show that... but in most cases, showing that your case is not frivelous or vexatious is sufficient and you will meet the first part of the test. The second part of the test is really the most important part of the test and if you cannot meet this part of the test, you will absolutely not get your injunction. So, one thing you want to keep in mind is that when you’re trying to show to the court that the harm is irreparable. One of the things the court is looking at, is that is this a situation where if we grant money would that be sufficient... and if the court finds that that will be sufficient, then the court is not going to grant you an injunction. So, the court must believe that damages is not an adequate remedy in your case and therefore you should get an injunction... but if something be compensated by money adequately, then the court is not going to give you an injunction.

With respect to irreparable, the courts or the cases say, that it is the nature of the harm that should be irreparable and not its magnitude. So, what do we mean by that? Let’s take our tree example, it does not matter whether it is one tree that is old or one hundred or one thousand trees. So, it’s not the magnitude, it’s the nature of harm. If one tree is one hundred years old tree and cutting down that tree is irreparable and that’s sufficient... you don’t need to have a case of one hundred, or one thousand trees to get an injunction. So, it’s magnitude is not what the court is looking at, it’s the nature of the harm. Then, with respect to damages, again, the harm should be something that cannot be quantified or cured and it’s important because if it can be quantified in money... then the court is not going to grant you an injunction or if it can be cured, court is not going to grant you an injunction.

So, some of the examples of where it cannot be quantified or cured, is that, in our situation, if the tree is cut, you cannot cure the harm. The tree is gone, it’s already cut and so even, if you get a judgment three years from now, the harm cannot be cured. So, this would be an appropriate case, where an injunction is an appropriate remedy. If you will go out of business, then the harm cannot be cured and so an injunction could be an appropriate business. If you end up losing market share and it is hard to quantify market share, the loss of market share, and so that could be a situation. If you believe that your reputation is going to get lost because of what the defendant is doing or going to do, then that cannot be quantified and so that could be a situation where the injunction would be appropriate remedy. So, irreparable harm is essentially the most important step in the court deciding whether you should get an injunction or not.

Now, third part is balance of convenience and in terms of its application, it’s pretty straightforward. The court is going to consider that if the injunction is not granted, what kind of harm it will cause you, the plaintiff... and on the other hand, if the injunction is granted, what kind of harm would it cause to the defendant? So, for instance, in our tree cutting example, if at the end of three years, the court decided that the developer had full right to cut down that tree, hundred year old tree, and now you’ve wasted three years of time... the cost of construction has gone up, so, on and so forth. So, you have basically by getting an injunction, made the defendant suffer for a lawful act that they could have done but because of your injunction, they have suffered that harm. So, the court is going to review the balance of convenience, and then decide whether the balance of convenience is in the plaintiff’s favor. If it’s not in your favor, you will not get the injunction.

Some of the specific examples quickly we’ll go through, one kind of injunction that plantiffs ask for is called Anton Pillar Order. In simple terms, it’s called a Civil Search Warrant and an example of that is you believe that the defendant has a computer at home which has very strong evidence in support of your case and you have strong evidence that if that computer is not retrieved the defendent is going to destroy all the evidence on that computer and strong evidence... so it’s kind of a civil search warrant where you can actually get the possession of that computer even before your case has gone to trial or even before you have commenced your court action.

Another example is Mareva Injunctions, these are called freezing orders in common terms and this is an order when you believe that by the time the matter is adjudicated three years or four years from now, a defendant will dispose off certain assets and you will not be able to make good on your judgment So, the court issues an order, freezing order, where the defendants cannot dispose of their assets.

Another example is a Norwich Order, which is an order that allows you to conduct discoveries of third parties... an example of that, would be, let’s say if it’s a defamation case where someone on the Internet made some defamatory remarks... you don’t know who the person is... but your ISP, the Internet service provider, can trace that person because of the IP address and obtain the name of that person and you can get a Norwich Order compelling that ISP, who is not a party to your litigation, to produce the name of that person. So, that’s called a Norwhich order and so, these are some of the common examples of injunctions that people ask in civil cases. Now, what you want to keep in mind, is that injunction as you should understand by now, is a very powerful tool. It gives you certain remedies even before your matter is adjudicated and because of it’s power, it is very cautiously used... it’s not easily granted but that is not to say that you may not have merits... if you have strong merits to get an injunction the court will grant you an injunction.

There’s a procedural mechanism, of course, in place. how do you schedule a motion, you know, what are the steps you have to do and all of that... that’s contained in rules of civil procedure and in my future lectures, I will actually try to explain how do you go about scheduling a motion for injunction and then go and argue it before a Judge.

Thanks for watching, if you have any questions or feedback, we’ll appreciate to hear from you. Bye.

Time Limits on Commencing Legal Proceedings in Ontario – The Limitations Act [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

Understanding the applicable limitations period to your claim is essential, since your claim may be dismissed for delay. This lecture explains in basic terms the concepts of limitations period, its purpose and the Ontario law surrounding limitations period.

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone, this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

Today, we’ll talk about an important topic that deals with the time period within which you can commence a legal proceeding in Ontario, if you believe that you have suffered some sort of harm. The topic is important because if you do not follow or if you do not commence your legal proceeding within the time period that you are allowed, you may not be allowed to proceed with your action, or you may not succeed in your action, simply because of the delay. So, you may have a strong case on the merits of it but just because you did not commence the court action within the time period, you may not be allowed to proceed with your claim... that is why the topic is important and we’ll try to explain some of the fundamental concepts in today’s lecture.

We begin with our usual disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal or contact the Law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals.

In today’s discussion, we’ll talk about what is the statute of limitations... we briefly explained to you in the introduction. What is the purpose? Why is the statute of limitations exist to begin with? What is the Ontario legislation that deals in civil action, civil matters in Ontario with respect to limitations period? What is the concept of discoverability? I’ll explain, this is an important concept, so, you need to have some understanding of this concept and I’ll try to explain it by way of an example. What are some of the exceptions to the limitations period and that’s also very, very important for you to understand. And then we’ll talk about the tolling or suspension of the limitations period, is it possible and if it is how do we go about doing that?

Statute of Limitations, as I said, it provides the maximum time... it allows the maximum time after an an event has occurred within which a legal proceeding maybe commenced. So, the last one I’m saying is that, the limitations, the statute of limitations could be a complete defense to a claim... meaning you have a valid claim against the party and you want to pursue it, but simply because you delayed your commencement of your legal proceeding and went beyond the limitations period, you may not be allowed to proceed.

I can give you a very small example, let’s say you... someone borrowed money from you and the person said that person will return that money on such and such date... and after that date had expired, if you did not seek the return of the money or you saw the return of the money and the person refused to pay it back, then you have now a claim against that person to go in court and get a judgment against that person for not returning the loan or the money that you had lent. So, you can not wait for years and years and years to commence that court action and get a judgement. There is a time period within which you can go to court, ask the court that you want a judgment against that person, so that that person may be ordered to give you the money back and if you do not do that within a time period, within a specific time period which is covered under statute of limitations, then that person that defendant can simply stand up in court and say that, “your action is statute barred, you are out of your time and therefore, your matter should not be heard or a judgement should not be given against that person”. So, that’s why the statue of limitations is an important issue if you have a potential claim.

What is the purpose? Why do we have the statute of limitations, in the first place? The purpose is really to protect the defendant’s rights. And also by imposing limitations period, the judicial system requires the plaintiffs to pursue with reasonable diligence, if they have any claims. They don’t want people to sit on their claims for years and years if they have a valid claim or if they want to pursue it in the judicial system. So it imposes some onus on plaintiffs to pursue it with diligence and also it protects the defendants because if a significant amount of time has passed, the defendant may lose the necessary evidence that they need to defend themselves. And so, in that instance, there is a possibility that because off the loss of evidence, there’s a potential that the court may may grant unjust remedies that may not be appropriate.

In Ontario, the limitations period is defined in the limitations Act 2002 I have provided the link here, you can Google it, and check out the limitations act. I’ve opened it right here and it covers all the topics relating to limitations within this act. So, by all means check this litigation limitations act and get a sense of what kind of limitations are provided in this legislation. Now, Section 4 of the limitations act, provides a basic limitation period of two years. Let’s look at Section 4 let’s quickly read it, “unless this act provides otherwise, a proceeding shall not be commenced in respect of a claim after the second anniversary of the day on which the claim was discovered”... that’s called basic limitations period and it covers it covers a variety of legal claims... but there are exceptions as I mentioned in the beginning, so, you want to be very careful whether to understand whether your specific claims fall under the basic limitations period or it falls under a different limitations period and so, you need to understand that.

We talked about the concept of discoverability... let’s look at where this concept of discoverability is coming from. It’s coming from the very section four that I’ve just read and the last sentence towards the end it says, “the day on which the claim was discovered”. So what does that mean? When was the claim discovered, how do you determine when the claim was discovered and that concept is defined in section 5 which we’re going to read and then I’ll try to give you an example and explain what this concept of discoverability means. “A claim is discovered on the earlier of”... number one or paragraph A... “the day on which the person with the claim first knew that the injury loss or damage has occurred [or had occurred] that the injury loss or damage was caused by or contributed to by an act or omission and that the act or omission was that of the person against whom the claim is made and that having regard to the nature of the injury loss or damage or proceeding, would be an appropriate means to seek to remedy it, and the day on which a reasonable person with the abilities and in the circumstances of the person with the claim first ought to have known of the matters required to in Clause A”.

So, I will explain this to you- sort of- try to decipher it. The section is self-explanatory, but I’ll try to decipher it, so, that you can understand it in simple terms. Obviously, you need to know that the injury loss or damage has occurred, right? Secondly, the injury loss or damage that has occurred is because of an act or failure to act on part of somebody or someone and some party... and then that is the party whose failure or failure to act or whose action that you are alleging is the one who’s the defendant, right? So, that’s that straightforward and the fourth part is that commencing a court proceeding is the appropriate remedy... which is which make sense... and the paragraph sub B is important. This assessment of whether the injury has occurred, who has caused that injury, are you suing right defendant... it is an objective analysis, it is not a subjective analysis. So, what it does is, it puts an objective analysis in subsection B... basically saying that we will put a reasonable person in your shoes and then decide whether when was the first time that the person knew that they had a claim, right? So, that’s the discovery. So, the idea is that you can’t have every person subjectively stand up and say, “I did not know that the injury had occurred or I did not know that such and such person had caused this injury”... it is an objective analysis. So, that’s important.

Then, subsection 2 of Section 5 is also important, a person with a claim shall be presumed to have known of the matters referred to in clause 1A, on the day the actor or omission on which the claim is based took place, unless the contrary is proved. So, there’s a presumption here, that if you are the plaintiff, you knew on the day when the injury occurred, that you had a claim and the court is going to pursue that unless you can prove it otherwise.

So, there’s a basic assumption here... a bit of a complicated language... let’s explain that by way of an example, some of the aspects of this section so you can get an understanding of what it means. So, we’ve given the example of a broken leg vs. a lung disease. You get into a car accident, you know, let’s say yesterday and you end up having some like, you know, leg injuries and when you go to the hospital you find out that your leg is broken... and the broken leg was caused by- sort of- the failure or the negligence or an act of the other driver in another vehicle. So then, what you are looking at is, in terms of the discoverability, you have now discovered that the leg is broken, you have discovered that the leg is broken because of the negligent driving of a driver in another vehicle and so, and that is the person and that defendant is the person that you are suing... the driver or the insurance company or whoever is liable for that but that is the person the correct person that you are suing. Then you have, so if you have that knowledge, if you learned all of these things today you came out of the hospital or you went to the hospital and you discovered today... then you have a claim starting from today. That’s when the discoverability of your legal claim has happened, so, that’s the case of broken leg example which is sort of straightforward. Let’s take an example of lung disease and the example that comes to my mind is by use of asbestos, so, people who worked in these factories which were surrounded and they were surrounded by asbestos and they inhaled asbestos and they got some lung disease later on their life. So, the question then becomes when when did you discover that this person had a lung disease, it may not have occurred, you know, many years from that time when the person was working in a factory. So, what day or what what was the day when the actual injury or harm took place? So, it may have taken place a number of years after the exposure to asbestos... problem number one.

Number two, how do you know it was because of an act or ommission when people were suffering lung disease because of asbestos, there was not enough medical research available that indicated that because of asbestos, the lung disease was caused to those those individuals, right? So, the cause or the act or the omission was not clear, so, it became, it was discovered later on. So, your knowledge of what caused that injury or harm was discovered maybe later on in the time period... and number three are you suing the right defendant? Right, so in this situation in the lung disease situation, the discoverability does not remain a straightforward matter, right... and so, that’s why if you were unable to discover it fifteen years ago that asbestos caused a long disease and the defendants that you’re suing are the ones who were behind that act or omission... then you would not have been able to commence the claim. So, that’s why the discoverability is important that a reasonable person should have discovered that he or she has a claim, right? So, in most cases the discoverability is straightforward: you loan somebody money, they were supposed to pay back to you in a certain date, they did not, you know that your loan is unpaid, you have a claim against them. You get into a car accident, you have a broken leg or a broken arm, you know that you have a claim against and that is discovered. You work for an employer, the employer has not paid you your wages on time, it was supposed to pay you on a monthly basis, and in first of that month has arrived, and you have not received your money, you have a claim for unpaid wages. So, in a lot of cases discoverability is a straightforward matter, but in a lot of cases it becomes very, very complicated.

Now to complicate matters further, there are exceptions to basic limitations period and I’ve given some examples. Example number one is that other legislation may show or may set out a different limitation period, for something else... and the common example is human rights code. In human rights code, if you have a human rights claim... the limitation period is one year, not two years and so if you have to bring a human rights application or an action simply based on human rights violations, then you actually have one year from the date of that injury to commence your legal proceeding. Now these exceptions are also covered in section 2 of the legislation.

So let’s look at Section 2 and it lists a number of other legislations, so, this act applies to claims pursued in court proceeding other than- you know- real property limitations act, judicial review Procedure Act, provincial offenses, so on and so forth, Aboriginal rights have different limitations period and whatnot. Sexual assaults you will see further down in the same legislation, in the limitations period, the sexual assaults have no limitations period. So, if someone has suffered sexual assault, then they can commence court action even beyond the 2 year basic period. Minors have no limitations, period and so there are specific sections that deal with minors in this legislation. Incapable persons who are legally incapable, they have no limitations period during the time that they’re incapable. Then what you also want to know is that there may be separate limitations periods against crown or municipalities. So, for instance, if you are in a car accident that was because of a pothole on the road and the road was not properly maintained by the municipality in which you’re driving... your probably... you don’t have two years, period. I think depending upon where you are, it could be as low as one week or two weeks within which you have to commence your court action. So, the so the limitations period vary significantly, so, you always want to be careful about the exceptions, so, that you are clear that your specific injury falls into the limitations period. Now, let’s talk about tolling or suspension of limitations period, quickly. This is dealt in Section 22 sub 3 and by all means, check it out. What this section 22 sub 3 allows, is that it allows the parties to suspend their limitations period or extend their limitations period by agreement... and when does it happen? When the parties are trying to find for example, non-judicial ways, to resolve certain issues. Let’s take the example of the friend who had borrowed money from you and he has not paid the time that he has promised to pay, when you threaten that person, and indicate that you wish you are going to commence a legal proceeding against that person to get a judgment against that... you may have some sort of, bilateral discussion, where the person may say has just found a job and he needs some time to save some money and pay you back and can we suspend the limitations period? So you can enter into an agreement whereby you can suspend the limitations period for a certain time period but then again, the suspension of imitations period by agreement in itself is a bit of a complicated matter and the courts have specific requirements on how you go about suspending that limitations period, so, you want to be careful that even when you’re suspending or tolling the suspension the limitations period you’re taking the right steps.

So, what is the message from this lecture? You must always consider limitations period first... as soon as you believe that you may have a claim against someone, the first thing you want to make sure is that are you within the time you can commence the legal proceeding... because if you’re out of the time period then you have a huge problem and then the concept of discoverability and all of the other things that I’ve talked about... they are relevant.

So, if you’re unclear about anything... you should consult a lawyer... I can tell you by way of experience that I have been consulted on limitations issues that were so complicated that they required many, many hours of research for me to be able to give my client a valid or reasonable opinion, in terms of whether they have a claim within the limitations period or not. So, it could get very complicated and you want to make sure that you are on the right side of the law. Just a question for you, for food for thought, we have two years basically imitations period... do you think that’s fair and I contrast that by ancient Greeks who had five years of limitations period and this is centuries ago, except for homicides and so why do we have two years’ limitations period? Consider the issue that in today’s day and age with the technological advancements that we have... the chances of finding evidence or keeping evidence is a lot more than ancient Greek. We have emails, text messages, documents, all these kind of things tape recordings, Google, Facebook, all these evidentiary pieces that may show or may be able to prove someone’s case or may allow the defendant to disprove the case. Is two years really an appropriate limitations period? I would love to hear your comments on that and if you have any questions or other comments or feedback a love to hear from you thank you for watching.

Performance Improvement Plans and Employees’ Rights [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

What is the impact of a performance improvement plan on an employee’s termination and severance rights? When faced with a performance improvement plan, what steps you must take to preserve your termination rights?

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Coming soon …

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone, this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

Today, we will talk about performance improvement plans and what are employees’ rights when they are issued with the performance improvement plan. This question was asked of me a few times in the last month or so, and I thought it will be a good topic to cover in these lectures.

We’ll begin with our usual disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact an employment lawyer.

Performance improvement plan, what is it? You may have seen it in your work place, you may not have, but a performance improvement plan usually has a few components. It is a plan that is put in place when an employee is not meeting the expectations of his or her job, or duties, or targets... and the components that are usually part of the performance improvement plan is, first of all, the areas in which the employee must improve his or her performance. That’s clearly identified.

Secondly, there is a time frame that is established, usually 3 months, sometimes four or five months. During which time, the employee is given the opportunity to improve performance and meet the expectations that are required. There is usually some ongoing supervision or monitoring... often times, there is a bi-weekly meeting session, one to one meeting session, with the supervisor where the supervisor will go over the performance of the previous two weeks, provide his or her input, and suggest some of the ways in which the employee can further improve performance... and also, the performance improvement plan usually has some sort of support mechanism. If there is need for an employee to get additional training, that may be part and parcel of it... if the employee needs one to one coaching on certain aspects of his or her work, then that may be in place. So, these are not, sort of, legal requirements of a performance improvement plan... there is no such thing... but these are, sort of, the general components of a reasonable performance improvement plan that may be put in place.


Let me give you an example of how these performance improvement plans, are sort of brought in, the most common example that comes to my mind is with financial institutions or large banks. If you are an employee whose target is to, let’s say, to sell 20 credit card applications in a week and you are not meeting that target you may be called into a meeting and then put on a performance improvement plan where the employer and the supervisor will sit down with you and discuss why you are not meeting that target, what is the expectation, and what are some of the ways in which your performance could be improved. And the performance improvement plan may also indicate in that plan, that if you are unable to meet those targets, meet the expectations, in the timeframe of the performance improvement plan then what is the possible outcome... whether your employment can be terminated or not. So, that’s one example, there could be other areas of work where you are employed and you get a performance improvement plan and you have to deal with it.

I want to briefly tell you about the difference between a probationary period and a performance improvement plan. Usually they are two, sort of, separate entities. So, we want to talk about it. Probation, as you may know is usually set at the outset of the employment. So, once you’re hired, your employment contract may say that the first three months or six months of your employment may be considered a probationary period during which the employer may consider whether you are the right fit for the job that you’ve been hired... whether you have the skills and abilities that you said in your resume and interview that you have, to accomplish the work that is being passed and so, the employer has the right to assess that during the probationary period... and usually, it’s the employer’s discretion at the end to decide whether you should get continued employment or not. So, probationary period usually does not have a detailed plan. It is as simple as that. There is a time frame set and then the statement is that you will be assessed during that time whether you are able to perform your job or not.

So, I say probationary period is set usually at the outset of employment, but I’ve seen examples where during the employment the employer may put you on a probationary period and that often happens when there is a change in your role. So, let’s say if you’re working in payroll department and now you’re going to accounts receivable department and your job function has changed significantly and the employer, or you get a promotion... and so the employer may put you on a probationary period during employment, basically to assess whether you are capable of performing the new role... but it is not common that once you have passed your initial probationary period at the time of hiring and you have been working, you know, for a few years or for a few months in excess of your probationary period... that you are put on probationary period again, that’s that’s very uncommon, but it can be done. There is no law that prevents the employer from doing it.

So, that’s sort of the probationary period and then performance improvement plan, as I mentioned earlier, is usually provided during the course of employment... it’s supposed to be, generally, a very detailed plan because the idea is this is a plan that is being laid out to support the employee a) forewarn the employee that the performance is not being matched and b) lay out a plan where the employee gets some support in order to get to where the targets are.

I have seen cases in which an employee has been employed for twenty years. Same job, same function, and then all of a sudden, the employee has been put on a performance improvement plan…. usually, you know, very uncommon but it has been done... I have seen it happening and for a variety of reasons, some genuine, some disingenuous. So, you have to be careful about the performance improvement plan when you have been performing your duties appropriately... there hasn’t been any change in your performance and all of a sudden, either because of the restructuring in your workplace or because of the change in command... you get a new supervisor, a new manager, all of a sudden, targets have shifted and you end up getting on a performance improvement plan. So, you have to be watchful of the performance improvement plan.

So, what are some of the consequences? If you are put in a performance improvement plan, what happens, obviously, step number one, is that you end up meeting those performance targets and the paper has concluded so everything is good. Number two, there is no improvement and the employer believes that there may be some opportunity for you to benefit from an extended P.I.P. that may help you to get to the targets that are required and so you may get an extension in your P.I.P for another 3 months or so. Let’s say, there’s no improvement, the employer may decide to terminate you on a without cause basis... as you know, from previous lectures, on a without a cause basis, means that the employer can terminate you but will have to provide you with your termination, severance Rights, or common law termination rights if they’re applicable to you as an employee. And number four is that, if there’s no improvement, the employer may terminate you on a with cause basis. Meaning you will not got any rights on termination and severance. This fourth aspect is the one that worries me most... if you are an employee, because in this situation you end up losing all of your termination rights. So you want to be careful that you don’t want to end up- even if you’re on a performance improvement plan- you don’t want to end up in the fourth scenario here where your dismissal could be with cause.

Now, I just want to clarify that, in most circumstances, where performance is an issue... the termination with cause is not an appropriate remedy. And if an employer chooses to terminate you with cause, that may not be upheld by the court and that’s in the majority of the cases... but review of whether the employer has the right to terminate you on with cause or without cost basis is a very fact-specific review. It will vary from your circumstances, to another person circumstances... so, there’s no sort of general law here that says that if your performance is an issue you cannot be terminated with cause... that’s not what the law is... so, it is really based upon the specific circumstances of your case, but I want you to keep in mind is that in the majority of the cases and in a large majority of cases... performance is really not the grounds for an employer to terminate you with cause.

It usually falls in without cause category and one of the reason why that happens is because the general expectation is that when an employer is performing it’s due diligence in hiring an employee... they have the opportunity to look at your resume, they have the opportunity to interview you, call your previous references... so, there is an opportunity for an employer to assess before hiring you whether you will be a suitable match or not and whether you’ll be able to perform your duties... and later on, if it turns out that you are not the right person, then the law generally expects the employer to terminate you without cause because you took that position in good faith, in hopes that you will be able to perform and the employer hired you in good faith, so that you will be able to perform. So, it’s not a situation where you were negligent or you acted in a way that was contrary to the job that was provided to you... you just couldn’t perform it and so, then the option really is without cause termination. But in some situations, termination with cause, can be established or at least claimed by the employer... and I have seen circumstances as I mention. I’ve had cases in which it was a long term employee who had performed fine, for a course of a decade or even longer and all of a sudden, he was put on a performance improvement plan because the employer had now put in unrealistic targets which could not have been met by the employee and so, the employer was trying to use that as grounds for dismissal for cause... and so we had challenge that and fight that.

So, in the next slide, what I’m going to tell you is what are the steps that you will take to avoid this fourth scenario, so that you’re not getting caught in this situation where the employer may claim dismissal with cause. So, what do you do? First step is if you believe that the performance improvement plan is unfair... whether it’s unfair because your performance had no issues and you believe there is no issues and it is unfair for the employer to say that you have deficiencies in your performance... then you must send in writing... so verbal dissent is not sufficient. You must send an email to HR or to your boss saying that you do not agree with performance improvement plan... it’s unfair... or the performance improvement plan may be unfair because of the targets that it’s putting in place. Those may be unrealistic and cannot not be done.

Common joke that goes around is that you should never meet your targets because if you do meet your targets, the targets are going to go up next year. So, it’s a scenario which is happening more and more, in many work places because of the challenges in economy. The employer is trying to improve their business or keep it profitable by, you know, increasing their targets, making, you know, fewer employees to do more work and sometimes that target becomes reasonable and unrealistic. So, you must dissent in writing.

So, when you’re dissenting in writing, it could be as simple as one sentence saying that, “I believe the performance improvement plan is unfair and I do not agree with it” and that may be sufficient or you can provide a bit more explanation as to why you think the plan is unfair... but you don’t need to get into a lot of detail as long as you put it in writing that you dissent, you disagree with the performance improvement plan and that your goal is you’re open to the idea that you sit with the employer and discuss this... then you leave it up to the employer to figure out whether they would like to have a meeting with you or a discussion to that effect. So, that’s the dissent in writing and the reason to do that in writing is because you want a documentary trail... where it’s not your word against the employer or the HR person, but there is a document that indicates that you disagreed with that.

Now, I get often this question from employees that they are very reluctant to dissent or say anything negative about the performance improvement plan because they’re concerned that they may end up losing their job at this stage, but my advice always is that you must decide if it’s unfair... even if you believe that employer will end up terminating you because once the performance improvement plan is in place, you are already in the direction of going to termination anyways. The train is leaving the station and so, you have to dissent it because if you don’t, then implicitly you are acknowledging that you have those deficiencies in your performance and then later on if you are dismissed... regardless of whether you improved or not, it will be hard for you to argue at that stage that the performance improvement plan was unfair because the employer will argue that you’re now complaining only because you couldn’t meet the targets. So, I think, whether you believe that you will be terminated just as soon you have dissented or that dissent is in place but you may be terminated later down the line... I think the smart approach is to do the right thing and dissent it at that time and if the employer chooses to terminate you, then so be it... your termination rights are preserved.

So, it’s the second part that I want to mention, is that you must document everything because performance improvement plans can be tricky... there’s a lot of detail in it. What are the targets? How many other people are meeting those targets? Are you the only person who’s not meeting those targets? Why are the targets unrealistic? How many calls you have to make to get one client for a credit card application and so on, and so forth.

So, the more you document this information about what is happening, why the performance improvement plan is unfair, what is happening during the time when you’re in performance improvement plan, the better off you will be because you will have more evidence, if this matter ever goes to trial... but if you don’t document it, then you’re relying simply on the employer’s documentation to prove your own case... which is usually difficult.

A third part that you want to remember is that you do want to comply in good faith. So, even though you are dissenting, you’re protesting, that’s not fair. After after having documented and lodged that dissent, you must comply in good faith. So, on one hand, you’re saying it’s unfair but on the other hand, you’re saying I’m going to try it in good faith to see if the performance challenges are met, even if they are unrealistic and I’ll try it... and that’s important because that will put you in good stead with the judge who will be reviewing your matter in trial.

So, the most important thing you want to carry is that if you are getting an unfair performance improvement plan, you must respond, you must voice your dissent, and have that documented... and you want to make sure that you have documentation in place. Document stuff at your home, write it down in your diary, and make sure that you don’t copy any confidential information from your employer... but at least document what’s going on as your own log at home and not on your work computer. Then, you want to make sure that your rights are preserved, if there is a dismissal, so, that you get a without cause dismissal and you get your termination and severance rights. So, those are the things to keep in mind with respect to performance improvement plans. If you have any more questions, any comments, please feel free to contact us and we look forward to seeing you in the next lecture.

Rule 76: Dealing with Objection to a Claim Under Simplified Procedure [video]

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

This lecture covers a sub-topic under Rule 76 i.e. dealing with an objection to commencing the court action under the simplified procedure. This lecture provides practical guidance on how to procedurally handle such an objection.

This lecture is taught by Amer Mushtaq, LL.B., M. Engineering , B.Sc. (Hons.), who is the Principal and Founder of Formative LLP.   Through his YouTube channel, YouCounsel, Amer shares practical advice from his years of legal experience to help anyone access justice and achieve their goals.  Subscribe today to learn more.

Show Notes:

https://canlii.org/en/on/laws/regu/rro-1990-reg-194/latest/rro-1990-reg-194.html

https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/courts/civil/fact_sheet_simplified_procedure_76.pdf

Lecture Slides:

Coming soon …

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone, this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

Today, we’ll talk about a sub topic of Rule 76, simplified procedure rule in Ontario, if you don’t know anything about Rule 76 or if you have not reviewed our previous lecture on rule 76, then I will encourage you to check that lecture before you review this one because we are indeed covering a subtopic in rule 76.

The topic relates to when you have commenced a court action under simplified rules, under Rule 76, and the defendant objects to the court action being commenced under simplified rules and what is it that you need to do. We’ll cover that in today’s topic.

We begin with our usual disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or contact the Law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals.

Well briefly talk about the grounds for an objection, when can a defendant object to your claim having commenced under simplified procedure and what do you do when you’re faced with an objection of that kind. We’ll provide you with some tips, and then we’ll give you some additional resources.

OK, so, briefly speaking, if you want to know the details of the kinds of objections, you should review our other lecture on rule 76, but briefly speaking, if your claim exceeds $100,000, you do have the option to commence it under simplified rules but then the defendant has the option to object to it. So, if your claim is in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, you’ve still commenced it under simplified procedure, the defendant in the statement of defense can say that, “they object to the court action having commenced under simplified rules”. That could be one form of an objection. Other grounds for objections could be that your claim is not for money, real property, or personal property or the claim relates to construct of liens, or family law, or class action or it is a case managed claim. So all kinds of issues may give rise to the defendants objection, but we’re, in today’s lecture, we’re dealing with the objection which is primarily based upon the fact that you have claimed more than one hundred thousand dollars in your claim and you still want it to proceed under simplifiied procedure, but the defendant objects to it, so what do you do?

Essentially, you have two options. Number one is that rather than trying to continue under simplified procedure, you now agree and file certain documents to confirm that your action will continue under ordinary procedure or what you can do is you can withdraw your claim exceeding one hundred thousand dollars because that’s essentially the objection from the defendant and you say to the defendant with respect to certain documents, you are withdrawing your claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, so you can continue under simplified procedure. So, let’s look at each objection separately. Number one is the option to continue under ordinary procedure and that’s covered under rule 76.02 sub 6 of the rules of civil procedure. You can Google it and read the rule. Briefly speaking, what that rule asks you to do is prepare, serve, and file form 76A- there’s a specific form under the rule 76 which you are required to prepare, serve, and file with respect to option number one, if you wish to continue under simplified procedure. Let me see if I can find that form for you. OK, so I’ve downloaded this form and you will see it’s a pretty straightforward form it essentially says, “the plaintiff states that this action and any related proceedings are continuing under Rule 76 continuing as an ordinary procedure”. So, if this is what you are doing, you check this box and you serve this document and file it with the court. This part of, the top part of the document, will be very similar to your claim, your pleading, you will put your own name and the defendant’s name here and then the court file number will come here. Similarly over here, you will have the exact same information that you had put in your claim at the bottom and then you will put the defendant’s counsel or defendant’s information here. So, it’s very similar to your claim or any other pleadings, the only part is that you’re making sure that you’re stating which option you’re following... so if you agree to the objection and you’re continuing under ordinary procedure, then this is the box you checked. You’ve prepared the document, you serve it to all parties, and then you file it with the court... that’s what you need to do, form 76A.

When do you need to file this form? First option is, after all the pleadings are closed. If you have reviewed my previous lectures on pleadings, you understand that pleadings are closed when everyone has filed their claims, counterclaims, cross claims, defense, reply... all of those documents which are called pleadings when they are filed that means the pleadings are closed. And so pleadings are closed, you can file form 76A or the other option is that when you are amending your pleadings, at that time of ammendment, you can file form 76A.

Now, one more thing I want to mention here, is that let’s say if you had to commence your court action under ordinary procedure and then at some point during that process either parties agreed that the matter could continue under simplified procedure or you amended your pleadings to bring your claim for under a $100,000 or to comply with the rule 76.02 sub 1... that rule which allows you to continue under simplified procedure... then, in that case the ordinary action can then be continued as a simplified action as long as you fill out forms 76A. So, the same process for form 76A, if you had commenced under ordinary action and then went back to simplified procedure... or another situation could be that you had commenced under simplified procedure, the defendant had objected for some reason, you continued under ordinary action, and then later on if the defendant agreed with you the parties consented or there is another reason you are able to amend your pleadings... or another reason that justifies that the matter can continue under simplified procedure, you can still come back to simplified procedure. So, form 76 is your tool to let the court know which way, under what procedure is your court action proceeding.

OK option number two, as I said, is a straight forward option that you withdraw your claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars and how do you do that? You serve and file a reply. A reply is a specific document, it’s part of the pleadings, if you don’t know what a reply is, we have a separate lecture on replies... so you can review that... but you prepare a reply and you serve and file it with a court. So, in that reply, you want to use this language or something similar to this language in which you’re basically saying the plantiff withdraws its claim exceeding one hundred thousand dollars to comply with the rule 76.02 sub 1... so, similar language which indicates clearly to the court, to the parties, that you are withdrawing your claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. So, again, you prepare a reply, you serve it on all parties, and you file it with the court with the proof of your service. With the affidavit of service.

OK, I have two tips with respect to this. Number one is that, let’s say you have a statement of claim which has a claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars and you want to continue under simplified procedure, right? And so one way is that you bring about the claim, it’s in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, let the defendant object to it, and if the defendant does object to it, you can withdraw your claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. That’s the part that we have already covered. Now, in this tip, what I’m suggesting is that you claim more than one hundred thousand dollars and within your statement of claim, you put a section there, or put a clause there, or put a paragraph there, which states that you’re withdrawing the claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. Doesn’t make sense, the way that I’ve stated it, why are you claiming more than one hundred thousand dollars, when you are at the same time, in the same breath next sentence, you are withdrawing the additional claim exceeding one hundred thousand dollars. Doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense in some scenarios and I have used it in those scenarios and I wanted to, sort of, give you that suggestion.

So, let’s say that you are in a situation where you have different heads of damages... let’s say you have a claim for discrimination... and you are claiming let’s say $50,000 for that and then you have another claim for loss of income. And let’s say you are claiming forty thousand dollars for that, then you have a claim... for some sort of tort... intentional infliction of mental suffering, for instance, and you’re claiming another forty thousand dollars. So, you have different kinds of damages and when you look at the total of these... if total of this claim but obviously it’s in excess of one hundred thousand dollars... this one is about $130,000. So, your claim is for more than one hundred thousand dollars, you commence it under a simplified procedure and my suggestion, what I’m saying is that, you put a paragraph that says that you are withdrawing excessive of $100,000, right?

So, in what circumstances does this make sense? It makes sense when, as a plantiff, you are happy to get one hundred thousand dollars from the court, you know, if your target is that you can get one hundred thousand dollars or something close to that... you are OK with that judgment... but at the same time you don’t know which parts of your claim the court is going to agree with and which part it is going to deny. So, let’s say you are in a situation where the court says we’re not buying your loss of income argument... you get zero on that. We’re not buying your tort claim... you get zero on that... and we’re agreeing with your discrimination claim. Now, the value of your claim based upon how the court has decided, is now literally come down to 50K. So, the court may award you fifty thousand dollars if it agrees with the claim and you get a judgment thousand dollars.

Let’s say, if you were trying to do the math to keep this total, under hundred thousand dollars, and then what you did was 40+ 40= 80 and then you brought, let’s say this claim, $20,000... to keep it under a hundred thousand dollars. Now, you get a judgment for twenty thousand dollars because you’re not going to get money for more than what you had claimed. So, you could have gotten $50,000 but you got $20,000 and in both scenarios the value of your total judgment is less than hundred thousand dollars. So, in some circumstances it makes sense to claim more than one hundred thousand dollars, but at the same time withdraw in excess of one hundred thousand dollars so that if parts of your claim are not succeeding, you can still get a better judgment as opposed to getting less money. So, this is a tip, and you can do that... and so one way you can do that is obviously that you prepare a reply... but again preparing a reply, filing it with the court, all of this costs time and money, and you can save all of that by putting a paragraph in your claim whereby your withdrawing it and that makes it easier for the parties to continue. So, that’s one tip, it may be helpful in some circumstances. Second tip you want to keep in mind, is that when you are filing a reply and if your reply is the only reason you are filing a reply is to withdraw your claim, then aside from the language that I mentioned in the previous slide which was that you say the plantiff withdraws the claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars... you should also have this paragraph in your reply, “unless specifically admitted, the plantiff denies each and every allegation in the statement of defense”... if you have nothing else to say, with respect to the statement of offense, except that you are just withdrawing your claim in excess of one thousand dollars... then you should add that.

The reason why you want to put this in is because if you remember my lecture from reply, when you do not file or serve the reply, then the way way the court believes is that it is a deemed denial of all the allegations in the statement of denfense, right? When you do not file a reply, it’s automatically a deemed denial of everything the defendant is saying in the statement of defense…. but if you do file a reply then you always want to specifically deny the statement of defense allegation. So that’s why, if you’re filing a reply, if you’re addressing other issues in the reply with respect to the statement of defense, than you’re fine. I think this sentence should always be included in your reply... but in this scenario, where you are only withdrawing your claim in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, make sure you add this sentence, this paragraph, as well.

OK, so the resources are no different than what we provided you in the previous lecture which is you can look at the rules. Read rule 76 and you will understand a lot more about what we talked about today... there is a posting from attorney general on their website... and you can check that out with respect to simplified procedure.

So, hopefully this gives you an understanding of the very specific topic where the defendant has objected to you commencing the court action under simplified procedure and how do you go about dealing with it. Thank you for watching and please do provide us with any feedback that you have or any other questions you may have of on this topic.