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Welcome everyone this is Amer Mushtaq from YouCounsel.

When you have to commence a court action in the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, you have to take specific steps to get into the court system and commence your court action.  We have a separate lecture on a summary of those steps and what those steps are.  One of those steps is to complete a form which is called the Information For Court Use Form.   In this lecture, I will explain to you what this form is—how do you complete it and what do you do with that.  We begin with a disclaimer that this course is not legal advice.  If you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal.

In the previous lecture we started with an example and will continue with that.  The example was Mary loaned $100,000 to John.  John has refused to pay back and Mary needs the court’s help to get her money back or get a court order against John, so she can enforce that judgment against John.   Assuming that you are Mary and you need to commence this court action, how do you get into the court system?  In our previous lecture we explained that there are two legislations that are the most relevant ones (1) the Courts of Justice Act and (2) the Rules of Civil Procedure.  The Rules of Civil Procedure is the one that you need to follow to get into the court system and move your case all the way through to Trial and beyond.  You need to know all of these Rules. We had also explained in the first lecture that there are three steps to commence the court action.  You have to complete the Information for Court Use Form, you have to complete a Statement of Claim and you have to pay certain court fees.  For all of these details please review the lecture on “Commencing a Court Action”.

Now, with respect to steps for completing the Information For Court Use Form, your first step is obviously to get the form.  You can go to Google and can find that the forms are available for free.  Type in Rules of Civil Procedure forms.  That will take you to the government link which provides all of the forms that are related to Rules of Civil Procedure and we know that Form 14F is the one that deals with Information For Court Use.  That’s the form.  Here you can download it as a pdf or as a Word document.  We will open it as a Word document.  Once you have downloaded the form the next step is really to complete the form.  Most of the information is already in here. 

The first thing you have to type in (put the information in) is where it says “(General Heading)” that is where your information and the defendant’s information comes in. Let’s say, Mary Kozner is the plaintiff.  You type in her name:

            Mary Kozner, plaintiff

                        vs.

               John Smith, defendant  

That’s the information court needs to know who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant.  You put that information in there.  Moving down to question number one the court asks—this proceeding is either an action or an application:

This proceeding is an: [√ ] action     [ ] application

And we have a separate lecture on the difference between an action and an application.  If you don’t know please check that lecture out.  For the purposes of this lecture we’re assuming that this is a court action and so you just check this box for the court action.

Question number two:

Has it been commenced under the Class Proceedings Act, 1992?

[ ] yes       [√ ] no

If this action is a class action? But if you are individually issuing it and it’s not a class action then the answer is no.  You check that box.

Then the third question which is quite important is that if the proceeding is an action, which it is, does Rule 76 (simplified procedure) apply?  What is this Rule 76?  We will have a separate lecture on it but briefly speaking you can read here that:

“Subject to the exceptions found in subrule 76.01(1), it is MANDATORY to proceed under Rule 76 for all cases in which the money amount claimed or the value of real or personal property claimed is $100,000 or less.”

 

[ √ ]

Yes                  [  ]        No

Mary is claiming $100,000.  Let’s check this box because we want it to be commenced under Simplified Rules,  Rule 76.  

Scrolling down to the fourth question, I will make it a bit bigger so you can see it better.  Question number four says:

4. The claim in this proceeding (action or application) is in respect of:

Note:  Subject to the exceptions found in subrule 76.01(1), it is MANDATORY to proceed under Rule 76 for all cases in which the money amount claimed or the value of real or personal property claimed is $100,000 or less.

What kind of claim is it? Is it relating to bankruptcy, collection of debt, constitutional law, construction law, so on and so forth. There are some general categories and these are just for the course statistics.  You pick one that is the best category that you believe your case relates to.  In this case it’s a collection of debt.  You check this box.

            Collection of liquidated debt               [√  ]

If your case is about something else then you check that box. 

All four questions are answered.  You print this form and then you sign here and you put the date here.

CERTIFICATION

I certify that the above information is correct, to the best of my knowledge.

 

Date:
			Signature of lawyer
			(if no lawyer, party must sign)

 

Once you have done that then your form is ready.  You have downloaded the form; you have completed the form, you print one copy sign and date and you have completed the steps.  Your Information For Court Use Form is now ready.  You take one copy with you to the court office, you take two copies of the Statement of Claim and you take the fees.  The court office will keep the Information For Court Use Form for its own records.  This is for the courts knowledge—what kinds of claims are being filed in the court and then also what kind of court file numbers are provided to your file.  Information For Court Use Form is done.  A brief review of the Rules.  You want to check the Rules of Civil Procedure and the information that we have provided here is mostly in Rules 14.01(1), 14.02 and 14.03.

Hopefully this gives you a very clear understanding of how you complete this Information For Court Use Form. It’s not complicated as long as you know the answers to the question that I just talked about.  You can complete it easily.  Hopefully this helps you understand this first step in commencing a court action.  In the next lecture we will talk about how you draft a statement of claim and what is a statement of claim about.  It will help you understand that concept so you can understand Step 2 of the process of commencing a court action.  If you have any questions about what we talked today or generally about the Rules of Civil Procedure or any other legal topic, please contact us.  Put it in comments box on youtube, send us an e-mail or reach out to us through any of these channels and we’ll be happy to add more information in future lectures.

Thank-you for watching.