Province overhauling small claims court system

Alberta's civil claim limit in provincial court is doubling from $25,000 to $50,000 as the government moves to create a “peoples' court” system designed to save users time and money.

“We basically want to create the peoples' court, a court where people can deal with their claims under $50,000 without having to go to a lawyer. They can still go to a lawyer if they want but it can be cost prohibitive,” Jonathan Denis, the province's minister of justice and solicitor general, said last week.

“A lot of it is groundbreaking. This does bring us to the highest limit in Canada, with the exception of Quebec but they have a different legal system.”

The claim limit increase in Alberta is the first change since 2002 when it jumped to $25,000 from $7,500.

The announcement this month of the claim increase, effective Aug. 1, along with other planned initiatives within the provincial civil court system, is in response to increasing pressures from Alberta's growing population – about 100,000 new citizens each year, he said.

Another reason for the changes is that the province is seeing more self-represented citizens taking their cases to the higher level Court of Queen's Bench trial system, which creates case backlogs and forces increased expenditure and time on users, he said.

It's noteworthy that about 60 per cent of cases in small claims court involve small debts, he said.

“They are not complex matters. Quiet often if it was above $25,000 people would abandon the amount above that or file in Court of Queen's Bench, which can create a lot of backlogs when you are dealing with all these self-represented people,” he said, adding improvements at the provincial civil court system will also see increased efficiency at higher levels of court. “This takes matters out of the higher court, the Court of Queen's Bench, with the expanded limit. That is the goal.

“I believe in the criminal just system we have to put victims first, always, and this is consistent with that philosophy because this will free up a lot of time at the higher level of court speaking to criminal matters.”

Denis' overhaul in the provincial civil court system includes the introduction of a pilot project this fall in Calgary and Edmonton that will direct civil claim disputes into what the province calls “appropriate resolution tracks.”

This will include the option of summary trials, which will be part of new legislation that will be tabled this fall.

The summary trial system at the provincial court system will be a first in any Canadian province. Summary trials have been offered in Court of Queen's Bench since 1998 but are rarely used and they are held without witnesses, said Denis. The summary trial system will call for each side in a case to have only one witness with a goal of having a maximum time limit of 30 minutes, he said.

“We will be the first in Canada to try it at this (provincial court) level,” he said.

“The parties will not be forced to do this. If you don't have that option for a summary trial you will basically tie up a whole morning or afternoon of a judge's or court's time, where as with this you could have five or six a day.”

If the option for summary trials is included in the fall legislation, they will be offered to citizens through what Denis calls a “triage judge” during a first court appearance.

Each claim will be reviewed by a judge in open court who will determine whether the case can be resolved immediately or whether it should go to summary trial or in Court of Queen's Bench.

“That is just expanding what we already have and that is mediation,” he said.

In addition to the new initiatives to settle small debts in the provincial court civil system, Denis's fall legislation is expected to include provisions to divert all landlord and tenant disputes from the courts to the quasi-judicial Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service.

“We are going to take all the landlord tenant issues into that particular service, and that is five per cent of the court's time right there,” he said.

The minister said the provincial court judiciary has told him the changes should not mean he will be forced to appoint additional judges but added he's prepared to do so to ensure success.

“Basically I just want to gradually implement these things and learn as we go along,” he said. “If we find out that we do need new judges and support staff that is what we will do.”