Negotiating a Severance Package

When discussing severance packages on termination of employment, the first thing employees need to remember is this:  Never sign anything without legal advice.

Similarly, one of the first things employers should remember is never to ask an employee to sign anything without giving them an opportunity to obtain legal advice.

On some wrongful dismissal disputes, you get 'make-or-break' issues, where the employer might not have any liability at all if successful.  These are cases involving issues such as constructive dismissal, deemed quit, or just cause.  Or sometimes a dispute can be between minimal liability and significant liability, where there is a question as to the enforceability of a written contractual term.  If there's a real dispute on any of these points on a high value case, it could well require a trial, or a significant compromise on the parts of both sides to reach a settlement.

However, in the vast majority of terminations, the only real dispute is about 'how much' - namely, the length of the notice period.  Sometimes, this is coupled with an argument about some of the Bardal factors - most notably, the character of employment.  But in most cases this dispute is not going to hold up a settlement for long.

If each side has a good lawyer in most of these cases, then both sides will probably have a similar estimated ranges - and an estimate is all you ever get in cases without a written termination clause - of the reasonable notice period that a Court would award.  So, in a given case, I might opine that an employee is entitled to 8-10 months notice, give or take.  There's always uncertainty.  A judge sympathetic to the employee might go higher; an unsympathetic judge might go lower.  So the employee hoping for a 12-month notice-period probably doesn't have his head in the clouds, nor does the employer hoping for a result in the ballpark of 6 months.  But neither side is likely to be able to reasonably expect such results.

As a lawyer, my job is to assess the risks of different strategies and advise my clients of the same, but it's up to the client to determine his/her own risk tolerance.  The key thing to remember is that nobody wants litigation, but some people are more willing to go that route than others.  Offers send messages - a skilled negotiator can often read the sweet spot on the deal after the first couple of offers - and the message that an unreasonable offer can send is “I’m not prepared to settle except on terms unfairly favourable to me.”

The other party might be prepared to concede, and settle on less-than-favourable terms to avoid litigation, but otherwise they're more likely to go further in the other direction, to send a clear response that they are not going to play ball, and to bring you into the range they regard as reasonable.  So, in the scenario I described above, suddenly you have an employee asking for 16 months and an employer offering only 4.  That is a big difference, and it is going to require both parties to completely change the philosophy of their positions to reach any middle ground.  Initiating litigation will often be necessary, and the more legal steps and the more negotiation that is necessary, the higher the legal costs of both sides go.

Alternatively, if both parties from the outset send messages that say “Let’s make a deal”, then there`s a higher probability that a quick agreement will be reached with minimal legal expenses, though both sides may be left wondering if they could have perhaps gotten a slightly better deal had they pressed the point further.

In other words, the harder you press your bargaining position, in an attempt to get a better deal, the more you will likely have to pay your lawyer.

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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.

Lest We Forget

Some of my readers may know that I spent a number of years in the Canadian Forces Reserves.  I never went overseas, but I know many who have, and regardless of how I feel about the politics of the conflicts, I continue to respect and honour those who serve.

So today, I feel it necessary to step aside from blogging about labour and employment issues, and address the message of Remembrance Day.

To my mind, the message has been convoluted in recent years.  "Support Our Troops" has become more of a statement about the politics of the conflict, rather than about support for the individuals on the ground.  There is a difference.  We have a volunteer army, who sign up to serve the country.  Few could criticize that sentiment, and so wherever that service takes them, we must continue to respect the individuals involved.

And yes, we must remember that for which they are serving.  Democracy.  Freedoms.  Rule of law.  Peace.  While I tend to think that it is disingenuous to think that Canadian democracy is really enhanced by what we do in many specific conflicts, it remains true that the integrity of our democracy is protected by the troops themselves.

But Remembrance Day is not a day of celebration.  It is not a day to praise our soldiers for winning wars and securing continued Canadian independence.  It is a day of solemn collective introspection, remembering the costs of war and honouring those who paid the ultimate price in service of their country.

War is hell.  That is what we learned in the first two world wars.  That is what we commemorate with Remembrance Day.  And if we ever start to think of war as anything other than hell, to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, then we do a disservice to all those brave young men (and women, now) who had to die before we learned that lesson.

It is generally acknowledged today that the First World War was not a noble conflict.  It was a war of politics, of rival powermongers seeking to establish dominance.  That does not stop us from recognizing the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers involved.  On both sides.  There are stories, likely myths, of men on both sides of No Man's Land coming together for brief moments of camaraderie - true or not, these stories remind us that the men in the other trenches were not evil.  And the fact that we can commemorate such an absurd war with such solemn respect for the soldiers involved in it proves that supporting the troops does not require that we support the war.

Dissent is not just a democratic right.  Dissent is a democratic duty.  If we believe that a conflict is wrong, or that we should not be involved in it, we have an obligation to be heard, and our respect for the soldiers enhances this obligation.  Our young men and women swear oaths to serve us as a country.  If we as a country proceed to send them into conflicts where they will be killed for no good reason at all, that is an insult to them, and to their oaths.

You may think, reading the above, that I am speaking of Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya.  I am not.  Please take these comments in a more general sense.  People protesting against military conflicts need to remember not to personalize the conflicts to the soldiers involved.  And others need to remember that a protest against the war is not inherently a personal attack against the soldiers, nor is it unpatriotic.  We, as citizens of a democratic country, need to be able to have these conversations without deteriorating into personal attacks against anyone.  Otherwise, what is it that our soldiers are protecting?

Legal Remedies of the Still-Employed

I've had a remarkable number of calls lately from people who still have their jobs, but who take issue with actions of their employer, be they disciplinary issues, changes to the nature of the job, or unreasonable employer demands backed up by a threat of termination.

It is possible to take the position that you have been constructively dismissed.  As I've discussed before, it isn't easy, and it's never guaranteed.  It adds an additional couple of layers of uncertainty onto an already uncertain process.  And while it is possible to sue your employer while still working for them, that’s only appropriate in some situations (and will likely cause problems for you with most employers).

The last example I gave really puts this in perspective.  An employee facing unreasonable demands and a threat of termination has two choices:  Give in to the demands, or risk being unemployed.  Assuming that it isn’t a demand they are entitled to make, they won’t be able to make out a case for just cause when you refuse to do so, which means you’ll be entitled to pay in lieu of notice of termination if you get fired.

But how much is that?  And is it enough?  Let’s suppose that you make $50k per year, and are entitled to approximately six months’ notice.  You’ll have a claim worth $25,000.  Which seems like a lot of money, when you say it this way:  If I get fired, I can get $25,000.  But it isn’t that simple.  First off, it’s truer to say “I can maybe get $25,000 or so.”  And then you have to factor in legal fees (which can be substantial), taxes, the fact that any EI entitlements will be deferred until after the six month period...not looking like such a lot of money anymore, is it?  Oh, and don’t forget that you may have to go to the end of a litigation process, years out, before you see a dime of it - unlike straight dismissal cases, employers are often very reluctant to acknowledge any basis for liability in constructive dismissal cases.

And here’s the hitch:  You’ll be unemployed.  How long will you be out of work?  Six months?  A year?  Longer?  Even if it’s shorter, there’s no windfall to be had here – if you find an equivalent new job in two months, you’d only win two months’ pay from your own employer, assuming you win at all.  (That's the 'mitigation principle' at work.  Don't be discouraged from looking for work, though, or accepting a job - failing to take reasonable steps to secure replacement employment can reduce your entitlements, too.)

So you really have to say “I can maybe get $25,000 or so, less legal fees, but I’m not sure when I’ll get it, and in the mean time I’ll be unemployed and I’m not sure when I’ll start getting a steady pay cheque again.”

In other words, when remaining gainfully employed is an option for you, you should think very carefully about your options before throwing that away in exchange for a chance of some litigation entitlements.



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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.

Taming Tyrants, or Fanning the Flames?

There is a column in today's Globe and Mail with suggestions as to how to "Tame an Office Tyrant".  Some of the suggestions aren't bad, but they presuppose a certain type of demeanour in the first place, and moreover they ignore the fact that the office tyrant does have a lot of control over both your day-to-day conditions and your long-term career prospects.

Having dealt with office tyrants, seen office tyrants professionally, and read dozens of judicial decisions arising from the actions of office tyrants, I'm going to suggest that there is a certain element of naïveté in the approach. I'm going to go through the suggestions one by one, before offering my own input, which is admittedly more of a lawyer's perspective on it.

(1)  Don't let them see you sweat.  In some situations, this will escalate things.  Now, I absolutely agree that you shouldn't get angry or emotional or lash out at the boss, but to remain a "sea of calm" tends to aggravate people who are furious.  I'm not entirely sure of the psychological reasons for this - my lay theory is that a person throwing a tantrum wants to make everyone else as miserable as they are, and when it isn't working, it only makes them act out more.  Being a "sea of calm" when the world is falling apart makes the people who are upset think that you really don't get what they're saying, or perhaps don't care about the gravity of the situation. #7 is a better way of approaching this.

(2)  Listen actively.  Hmm.  When your boss is talking to you, should you listen?  I'm going to file this one away under "s" for "self-evident".  Even though three quarters of what they're saying is nothing but personal insults, if there are instructions buried in the other quarter, you need to know what they are.  Easier said than done, however.

(3)  Be a role model.  Acting respectfully, honestly, and diplomatically is always a good idea, but I think it's a little naïve to expect to be able to teach your boss how to behave more professionally.  They're not looking to you for life advice.

(4)  Be a problem solver.  Try to proactively prevent situations from arising that will cause your boss to freak out.  Either, these actions are part of your job, in which case it gets filed under "s", or they aren't, in which case in some situations you're taking a risk by being seen as meddling in things that aren't your affair.

(5)  Harness strengths and weaknesses.  I actually kind of like this one.  The subtext is fun:  If your boss behaves himself when clients are around, then keep clients around.  (Actually, this isn't an uncommon feature of the office tyrant.  Being great at schmoozing is how people with no HR skills get into positions of authority.)  But it isn't really a solution.

(6)  Use humour.  See my objections to #1.  If you're joking about a situation that your office tyrant thinks is serious...duck.

(7)  Show empathy.  Good idea, if you can pull it off.  Bringing the boss down by getting him/her to realize that you're on the same page is prudent.  But on the same note, this won't always work:  Your boss isn't looking for a friend or sounding board, but is trying to vent, and might react badly to any attempt to take control of the situation.

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You might be picking up a theme from my critiques:  In most cases, I don't think a subordinate is in any position to 'fix' an office tyrant; you either have to live with it or end it.

If you're in a larger company, there's a tendency to accept that managers come and go.  Occasionally you get a bad one, but if you can put up with it for a couple years, then hopefully one of you will move elsewhere.  In a smaller company, where your manager doesn't answer to anyone, it is a much more difficult situation, but people still like to think, especially in a tough economy, that they can just deal with it for as long as they need to.

Sometimes, you can find ways of living with it.  I once worked with an office tyrant who used a subordinate as a verbal punching bag, but in the form of an abusive relationship, would come back with bonuses after bad episodes.  If you really want to live with it, then actively listening to your boss when he's fuming with anger isn't going to do it; you need to go back to the boss once he's calmed down to figure out how he really wants you to move forward.

The difficulty with a strict 'tolerance' approach is that, if it really starts to go downhill for one reason or another, you don't have good records of why it started downhill.  I'm a big advocate of case-building, on a 'just in case' basis.

When your boss flips out, document it.  Keep a record.  Don't let the record-keeping interfere with your duties, because in fact the record-keeping needs to reflect that you have been completing your duties in an exemplary fashion, but make notes on your lunches, on your breaks, or in the evening on the day of any unprofessional conduct by the boss.

If the boss gives you instructions verbally which are new, or which you think will conflict with other expectations, then confirm the instructions by email.  If you have articulable concerns about the consequences of these instructions, put them in the email.  Email is awesome for case-building.  In many cases, I consider it wise to bcc your own home email account, or print off a copy of the email for your own records, redacting any confidential information.  (Remember that the records you keep should be kept at home, not in your work desk or on your work computer.  You never know when you might no longer have access to either.)

What are you building a case for?  Well, three things.  The first is that you're building a case for future in-house dealings with the employer.  If the employer wants to hold you responsible, by way of discipline or the withdrawal of discretionary bonuses, etc., for something that's gone wrong, having records establishing that you were following express directions from your manager...can be helpful.  The second is that, if your conflict with your manager ultimately leads to you being fired in spite of your best efforts, a solid record of unprofessional conduct by your manager will help to defuse any case for just cause they might try to make, and further enhance a pitch you might make for moral damages in a wrongful dismissal suit.  Put simply, having records puts you into a better negotiating position.  The third is that, if you reach the point that you simply have to quit, those records may in some circumstances allow you to seek recourse for constructive dismissal.  Without detailed records, your evidence at trial ends up being something like, "He was always yelling at me.  One time, he did this.  Another time, he did that."  And the Court ends up having to look at the small handful of specific allegations you're making.  With detailed records, you can list off the dates and particulars of every temper tantrum your boss ever threw, right down to which names he called you on which occasions.  This is far more compelling.  (Normally, Courts like to draw adverse inferences from the fact that you're not raising these issues with the other party as they go along.  In employment relationships, however, the Courts tend to understand an employee's reluctance to put the employer on notice.)

In my own dealings with office tyrants, I put virtually everything into emails.  Firstly, it lays a clear record of communications.  If I tell my boss that a client is upset and wants to talk to him, and he resolves to call the client back but promptly forgets, then two weeks later when the client totally freaks out, the boss is half-likely to come back on me, accusing me of not telling him.  If I send an email to my boss that a client is upset and wants to talk to him, then not only does it make it less likely that the boss will forget, but it also covers my own behind in case he does.

Remember that your boss is the one in charge.  If the office tyrant tells you to do something, then subject to certain limitations, you should do it.  If you've been doing it one way for thirty years, and your boss comes in with a new approach that you think will be catastrophic, then you should respectfully voice your concerns (by email, ideally), but if your boss insists that he wants it done his way, then do it his way, to the best of your abilities.  If you were right that the results are catastrophic, avoid saying "I told you so" - you've got your back covered by the fact that you recommended against the strategy in writing; no need to rub it in - but if you're wrong and the strategy works, all the better.

And the other thing to keep in mind is Bill 168.  If you can't tolerate the office tyrant's unprofessional conduct, then your workplace should have a mechanism in place for making complaints of harassment.  As a practical matter, I'd be reluctant to use that mechanism in a small workplace until it is becoming absolutely intolerable...but as it approaches the threshold of intolerability, then the phrase "nothing to lose" comes to mind.

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I once had an office tyrant come into my office for an unscheduled meeting on a file I had had some minimal involvement on months earlier, and she thoroughly reamed me out for allegedly having dropped the ball when I was working on it.  After she left, I reviewed my own personal records of the emails we had exchanged at the time, and the story the emails told was that she had instructed me to do exactly what she was now upset at me for doing, and I had done exactly as I had been told.

I went out on a limb there, and sent an email confirming the contents of our 'discussion', referring her to the prior emails, retracting the apology that I had prematurely proffered, and explaining how upset I was at both the false allegations of misconduct and the inappropriate manner in which they had been made.

Now, there may be situations in which talking about my feelings may open up a productive discussion.  Maybe, in some situations, a boss would respond to such an email with an apology.  I knew my boss well enough, though, to know that this wasn't one of those situations.  Tyrants don't like being told they're wrong, and this is especially true when they actually are wrong.  And while she actually completely ignored my email (and in fact ignored me completely for a week afterward, which was difficult in such a small environment), I didn't send that email without already being willing to start looking for another job.

The reason I sent that email was two-fold.  Firstly, I had wrongly offered the apology, and I couldn't leave it standing out there, largely as a matter of pride.  There's no question that pride is counter-productive in these situations - do as I say, not as I do.  Secondly, I was very careful in framing the email so that there was not even the slightest hint of insubordination.  No name-calling, no unsubstantiated allegations, nothing improper or disciplinable...so that if we ever ended up litigating over conduct in the course of the employment relationship, I could put that email before the Court, putting on the record my own contemporaneous characterization of her treatment of me, without giving the Court any reason to think worse of me.  Yes, while the reasonable thing for a manager to do in response to that email would be to apologize, I knew full well that my boss would not, and to some extent I was counting on that.  I had "won that round", so to speak, and would be an important victory in the event that the threat of litigation ever arose.

Word of wisdom for employers:  You really can't ignore an email like that.  If it's right, apologize.  Nothing takes the wind out of a well-documented incident of mistreatment like a voluntary apology.  If it's wrong, put on the record the reasons it's wrong.  If the employee ventures into insubordination in the course of the email, then discipline them for it.  (Yes, that's right, if I air a legitimate grievance, and then start into the name-calling, you should apologize to me for your actions that upset me in the first place, and at the same time impose discipline for my own inappropriate conduct.)

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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.

Another Analysis of "Appropriately Dealt With"

On October 27, I made an entry about a recent Divisional Court case, Trozzi, interpreting s.45.1 of Ontario's Human Rights Code, which permits the Tribunal to dismiss an application the subject matter of which has been "appropriately dealt with" in another proceeding.  The Court determined that Ms. Trozzi could not go to the Human Rights Tribunal to fight over a human rights issue that had already been considered and dealt with by the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board.

In that post, I argued that Trozzi may still leave the door open to an argument that the Tribunal is able to hear arguments about matters previously decided by labour arbitrators if they are of the opinion that the arbitrator didn't "appropriately" deal with the subject matter, as happened in the Barker case (which I talked about here in July).

On October 28, as an anonymous commenter on my Oct 27 entry has drawn to my attention, the Supreme Court of Canada released a decision in British Columbia (Workers' Compensation Board) v. Figliola, interpreting an almost identical section, s.27(1)(f), of the British Columbia Human Rights Code, which gives much more material for the discussion.

Figliola suffered a workplace injury which resulted in chronic pain, and British Columbia's WCB had a policy that essentially set out a fixed formula for what people with chronic pain would receive.  He argued, among other things, that this policy contravened the Code, and took the argument to a Review Officer, who rejected it.  Around this same time, the BC Legislature enacted legislation which removed the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal's jurisdiction to consider human rights issues, which meant that the Review Officer's decision regarding human rights could not be appealed.  As a side effect of this, it would have been possible to seek judicial review of the Review Officer's decision in respect of the human rights matter.  Figliola decided instead to take the matter to the BC Human Rights Tribunal.  The WCB argued that it should dismiss the application because its subject matter had been "appropriately dealt with" in another proceeding, and the Tribunal declined to do so.

The Tribunal's reasoning was premised on a previous BC Court decision interpreting the provision in context of a Barker-type case, where the Tribunal had reviewed an issue previously addressed by a labour arbitrator:  The Court had felt that s.27(1)(f) captured the underlying principles of certain common law doctrines against multiple proceedings.  The Tribunal, applying the common law tests literally, concluded in Figliola that they weren't strictly met, and therefore declined to exercise its discretion to dismiss the application.

The Supreme Court was unanimous that this was wrong.  Capturing the underlying principles does not mean that the test should be applied technically.  However, the analysis had an important schism, with a 5/4 split court.

Justice Abella's camp - the majority - argued that the Tribunal's discretion should be interpreted narrowly, requiring deference to other adjudicated decisions and not permitting discretion to hear such matters anyways.  They allowed the appeal and dismissed the complaint.

Justice Cromwell's minority, on the other hand, argued that the language confers a wide discretion, and so while the Tribunal failed to answer the question correctly in the first place, the matter should be sent back to them to apply a proper analysis as to whether or not to proceed with the complaint.  The implication being, of course, that the Tribunal should still be able to evaluate for itself whether or not the WCB had "appropriately dealt with" the subject matter.

Typically, we wouldn't give too much attention to the dissent.  The majority's conclusion is now the state of the law in Canada, binding on everyone except the Supreme Court itself.  The dissent is just that - a dissent - and even though it made some very strong criticisms of the majority's reasons for finding a narrow discretion (which essentially turned on the context in which s.27(1)(f) falls), the BCHRT is now stuck with the majority's decision.

The more interesting question is the consequences in Ontario, where we have essentially the exact same legislative provision.  One might think that the Supreme Court would find that the same phrase has the same meaning in British Columbia and Ontario - in fact, there's a strong argument to that effect.  Yet the reasons underlying the majority's interpretation in British Columbia is significantly based on the subsections surrounding the provision in the B.C. Legislation, which is in fact very different from the surrounding context in Ontario.

Meaning that, if Trozzi or some similar case goes to the Ontario Court of Appeal, it is quite possible that the Court would distinguish Figliola on that basis, and perhaps even conclude, given the strength of the dissent, that the dissent's interpretation of the provision is the one that should be applied to the Ontario language.

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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.

Employment Standards: The Cost of Reviewing Orders to Pay

I recall the first time I carried my own OLRB proceeding:  An employer came to me after receiving a couple of Orders to Pay from an Employment Standards Officer, to the tune of about $13,000.

It was a small employer - essentially, he had purchased a franchise and had one employee so that he didn't have to spend all his time on front-line tasks - and his margins were very small.  He was a fairly recent immigrant, with absolutely no grasp of employment standards.  I have often wondered if franchisors target these demographics for exploitation:  Immigrants who are entrepreneurial and hard-working, who don't realize the cost of doing business in Ontario, and will sign a franchise agreement thinking that it will let them make a lot of money if they work hard enough.

There were two aspects of the Orders that prompted him to come to me:  The first was that he didn't think he should be liable.  The second was that, in any event, he didn't have the operating funds to pay.  So he wanted my help to fight them.

The liability issue was tricky.  It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that he owed at least a couple thousand dollars.  I was able to put together some technical legal arguments to the contrary, but they were a stretch, and I told him so.  As for the rest...it was a factual dispute.  If his version of the facts were accepted, then he wouldn't owe the money.  If the employee was believed, he would, subject to some argument about the quantum.

But the really hard part was the lack of operating funds:  In order to apply for Review of Orders to Pay, an employer must remit the full amounts of the Orders (with a cap for certain types of Orders) to the Director of Employment Standards in trust.  If you don't have the money to pay the Orders, you can't apply for review.

(If you really can't pull together the money, then there's case law that suggests that you can go for judicial review instead...but given the expense of doing so, this is something that only has practical value where the Orders are truly massive, such as in the millions of dollars.)

So if you can't pay - and the application can't be processed without payment, and there are strict timelines which will block your application if you don't make the payment in time - then you're pretty much stuck.

My client was appalled by the seeming injustice of this, as he had never heard of anything like it before - you have to pay the money first before you can seek adjudication on whether or not you owe it?  I explained to him that the law doesn't permit the OLRB to process an application without payment.  A further challenge was generated by an ambiguity on the Board's application form itself:  Payment was required for an application by the employer, but my client noticed that the form contemplates an objection by a director of the corporation, which doesn't require such payment.  The client wanted to try it that way.  Put simply, it's not novel for employers to try to get around paying that way, and it doesn't work.  The OLRB has handled these applications two ways:  Usually, they will dismiss the application outright unless there's been an Order for the director of the corporation to pay directly, though I've also seen cases in which they permitted the application to proceed, but only in relation to the director's personal liability - so the director, proceeding as a director, could not challenge the Order against the corporation itself.

With no other choice, the client was able to scrape together enough borrowed money to make the necessary payment, and we eventually negotiated a settlement of less than a third the total amounts of the Orders.  Even after taking into account legal fees, the deal still saved him thousands of dollars.

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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.

The Small Claims Court: In Theory and Practice

The Small Claims Court is envisioned as an efficient, inexpensive process for relatively low-value matters.

But now having a jurisdictional limit of $25,000, the Ontario Small Claims Court is hearing matters with much more importance to the parties.  And while the process hasn't changed much, and so is theoretically still simple and efficient, the parties tend to take greater steps to protect their procedural rights, dealing with so much money.

Lawyers get hired.  Documentary production becomes more elaborate - lawyers will insist upon it, and while the technical Rules of documentary production are relatively relaxed in the technical sense, lawyers are not unjustified in asking for documentary production from the other side.  (Acting for an employee on a Small Claims matter, I once sent the employer's counsel a list of documents and particulars I would insist upon, the list itself being about four pages long.  It looked absurd, at a glance, but I could make a solid case that I was entitled to production in respect of each and every one of the documents I asked for.  There were complex issues - the employer was arguing just cause and I was arguing condonation - and I was going to insist on a full and fair hearing, despite the relatively low dollar value.  This was a major factor in pressing for a settlement which was favourable to my client.)

Every Small Claims Court file I've acted on has at least one of two factors making them expensive:  Sometimes the legal issues are complex, as in wrongful dismissal matters, requiring lawyers.  (Self-represented litigants are very poorly situated to argue about reasonable notice periods.)  Other times, there are factual questions requiring an expert witness.  And experts are expensive, too.

These aren't a small sampling of cases.  A great many matters before the Small Claims Court have complex legal or factual issues.  And the process is being increasingly unsuitable to self-represented litigants.

I've successfully defended actions simply on the basis that the plaintiff was unwilling to incur the expense of getting an expert witness that would be necessary to establish its case.  I've also successfully represented plaintiffs suing for services rendered where the defendant alleged defects in the work product, but the defendant was unable or unwilling to present expert evidence establishing the defects.  (You might be surprised by the frequency with which witnesses or litigants will say "I've been told that this is the case".  In Small Claims Court, the rule against hearsay is somewhat relaxed, but I usually cross-examine in such a way as to highlight the hearsay nature of the comment, and then argue in my submissions that little-to-no weight should be given to it.)

The Court of Appeal released a case this past May, Krawchuk v. Scherbak, highlighting the need for expert evidence in cases where professional negligence is alleged.  (Incidentally, this was released just a couple weeks after I wrapped up a trial in which the precedent would have been helpful.  Doesn't matter - my client was still successful.)  Unless the subject matter is one that would be understood by the ordinary lay person, or the conduct complained of is so obviously below the applicable standard that you don't need to know the specifics of the standard to recognize the work as being deficient, an expert is required in these cases.

Lawyers, experts, and additional productions all add a lot of expense to a proceeding.  As the Small Claims Court evolves to deal with its increased jurisdiction, it is quickly becoming the not-so-Small Claims Court.

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This blog is not intended to and does not provide legal advice to any person in respect of any particular legal issue, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship with any readers, but rather provides general legal information. If you have a legal issue or possible legal issue, contact a lawyer.