The other day we received a Notice of Trial from the Court. The date of the Trial was November 1, 2022 at 8:30am. However, the Notice of Trial was dated November 7, 2022. This brought on some confusion, especially since the Settlement Conference in this matter just took place several weeks prior.
I tried to contact the Courthouse for clarity, and remained on hold for over two hours before finally hanging up, because I was tired of hearing the same message over and over:
“Thank you for your patience. Your call is important to us…please remain on the line, and your call will be answered in sequence.”
While on hold, I decided to try my luck by emailing the Court, not expecting a response. However, their response was just as confusing as their Notice.
We were advised that the Trial date was put “into the queue for November 1, 2023” not 2022 (obviously), however, the Trial still might not take place on November 1, 2023 as it says “SCC COVID 19 NEW HEARINGS TBD.”
I filed a Motion on this particular file in January, 2022. We’re still waiting for a date. The issue of our Motion should have been dealt with long before the Settlement Conference took place.
We were told that that our Motion was still in the queue to be scheduled. Our Motion, that was filed in January, 2022 was still in a queue to be scheduled. Why are Motions in a year-long queue?
What has the Small Claims Court been doing that it is taking this long to schedule a Motion? For the record, we are still waiting for Assessment Hearings to be scheduled that were requested back in 2020.
There has been essentially radio silence from the Small Claims Court to explain why things aren’t progressing as they should. You would think after two years since the Pandemic started that things would go a bit smoother. But alas, they are not.
Sometimes access to justice can be difficult.
Murray Brown, Licensed Paralegal