These days it is very common for the news in Ontario to have a story about a criminal case that has been “tossed out” due to delay. This delay is also in the Civil side of the Court, the only difference is that cases are not tossed out due to delay of the Courts.
The backlog in the GTA Courts is significant. Trials in Toronto are being scheduled in 2026, motions can only be heard in 2025. Things are not getting done.
Someone suggested raising the Small Claims limit in a recent Linkedin post I read. That doesn’t need to happen in order for Small Claims to be an effective Court to ease the Superior Court pressure we currently have.
What needs to happen are cost consequences for cases that are currently being brought in Superior Court that should be in Small Claims, where damages have a maximum of $ 35,000.00. Many firms in the GTA bring actions in Toronto Superior Court to force mandatory mediation and if they don’t settle there, often settle at pre-trial for way less than $ 35,000.00, often for zero. The majority of employment files our firm handles for employers are these types of cases. They are bogging down the Toronto Court system and it’s an easy way to get rid of a lot of the cases that should be in Small Claims as it is now.
Just last week I had an employment file where Plaintiff’s counsel booked a Superior Court scheduling Court (called CPC) in Toronto for their Summary Judgment motion. The morning of the CPC they changed it to a Summary Trial, which is the type of trial that is mandatory for cases under $200,000.00, but is optional for over that amount.
Our case had mandatory Simplified Trial which is obtained by the Plaintiff serving a Notice of Trial. A pre-trial is then set before an Associate Justice and from there the trial date is set. The lawyer in our case was trying to jump the line and but for me bringing to the CPC Judge’s attention that this was the Plaintiff trying to “jump the cue” they would have succeeded. They did not and “shockingly” as I write this Blog, well past the date of CPC, they still have not served their Notice of Trial.
There are ways to clear our backlog that simply require enforcing our current Rules of Civil Procedure and changing the way counsel are clogging up Superior Court inappropriately. We need to see this change quickly, before the problem becomes even bigger.
Inga B. Andriessen, Senior Lawyer