Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Welcome everyone! This is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel. Today we’ll talk about the torts of assault and battery in Canada and we’ll explain to you the fundamental concepts. These are two separate torts and we have lumped the two together in today’s lecture because there are often misconceptions of about which tort is which one and oftentimes people are confused whether the tort of battery is in fact a tort of assault. So, we’ll explain the two torts together and also explain the differences, so, you are clear about which tort is which and in specific circumstances.

We begin with a disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, if you’ve any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal or contact the law side of Upper Canada in Ontario, if you require a referral.

We’ll explain tort of assault and we’ll explain the tort of battery we’lll explain to you the difference between the two torts, if it’s not clear by the time we get there... and then we’ll explain how the damages are awarded with respect to these torts. There are three elements of the tort of assault there has to be an intent to cause a reasonable apprehension... often immediate offense of contact, unconsented contact which results in harm. So, let’s take each element one by one– the intention to cause is the intent to commit the act not to commit the harm. So, let’s take an example, if you wave your fist in someone’s face, but you never intend to actually punch that person... that is immaterial. The act of committing to whaling that fist is the intention that that this element is looking for. So not the intention to cause the harm. Now, with respect to second element, which is very important to understand– it is a reasonable apprehension, underline the word apprehension…. so, it’s a reasonable apprehension of an immediate harmful or offensive contact. So, keep in mind, that in assault there is no actual contact... no physical touching actually occurs in an assault, it’s simply an apprehension that an offensive contact and unconsented contact may occur and it’s the apprehension of the victim. not the apprehension on part of the perpetrator... not the person who’s committing the assault... so, if the victim believes that a physical contact and offensive contact is likely to occur then that’s the apprehension that is considered. So, an example could be when someone threatens another with a toy gun, the person who is threatening with a toy gun knows that it’s a toy gun and no harm can occur from that, but the person who is the victim if he or she does not know that it’s a toy gun... it’s his or her apprehension that matters with respect to tort of assault.

The third element is harm and the requirement of this third element is if you’re seeking damages... so, if you want damages for that tort of assault, then there has to be some physical, mental, or emotional harm caused by that assault and if you qualify for those damages... if you can prove that there was some sort of harm. With respect to emotional or mental harm, if you have medical evidence establish that, that’s fine... but, you know, the harm that mental emotional harm could range... could occur in a variety of ways you may you may start living in fear, you may have sleeplessness, you may have a stomach disorder, or other things that may occur and if you can show that or establish that to a court, you may be able to get damages. There are other damages that you can get as well, which we’ll talk about in the damages section.

Now, we have given you some examples of assault but, you know, waving a fist in someone’s face where the other person feels that you may come in contact with that person that unconsented contact, offensive contact... that will meet the elements of the tort of assault. For example, another example could be blocking an exit... if you’re standing in the door, in such a way, that the person, the other person believes or apprehends that they will not be able to leave the room and if they try to do that you will come in physical contact with that person and that will be sufficient to show that an assault occurred.

Now, tort of battery the elements are similar but there’s a major difference that we’ll explain... first of all, there has to be an intent, then there must be a contact without consent with another person, and there must be some and ensuing harm for you to get damages. So, again, the intent is simply to commit the act not necessarily to cause the harm or the injury– so it’s the act that matters of committing, not necessarily the intention... the intention is not necessarily that you were intending to actually cause harm. So, let’s say if you touched some person in their face, it’s not the intention that is being question... it’s really that you intended to touch the person. The intention that is being questioned is not that, with that touching, you know, you intended to go break someone’s tooth or something like that, so, it’s the intention of committing the act.

Now, with respect to the second element in battery, there is actually a contact which is without consent. The contact could be of two kinds– could be a direct contact, could be an indirect contact. So, an example of direct contact is really punching someone in the face, so, that’s a very direct contact. Your face and the person’s face that’s a direct conduct, that’s battery. An indirect contact, is for example, hitting someone with a car, throwing a stone at someone... so those are examples of an indirect contact... or even touching a person’s clothing and that could be considered an indirect contact and could still amount to battery. With respect to harm again, the harm could be physical, could be mental, could be emotional, and you can demonstrate that a trial and get damages.

So, essentially, the difference between assault and battery is contact. In assault, there is actually no physical contact between the parties and in battery, there has to be some sort of contact between the parties. So, that is the fundamental difference between the two... with respect to damages, the damages the court will decide damages based on the seriousness of the harm, whether it’s physical emotional or mental. The court can award nominal damages, court can award compensatory damages, and compensentory damages are really to compensate the harm. In other words, if you have suffered a broken leg, then whatever the cost of having the medical treatment done or any other damages flowing from that... for example, if you’re not able to earn income during that time, while you are recovering from that injury, so, those will will be sort of compensatory damages... and then the court may award punitive damages which are based upon really not based upon the harm but essentially sending out a message that this kind of conduct or behavior is unacceptable and so the court can award punitive damages. So, hopefully, you get a good sense of at least the fundamental concepts of what is assault and battery in civil cases. This lecture is not about criminal assault or battery... it is simply about the civil matters, the definitions of assault and battery, and in criminal matters can be found in the criminal code... and so obviously different slightly different principles apply... even though the concept is fundamentally the same but of course you’re not seeking monetary damages in a criminal matter, so it’s likely different. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us and thank you for watching!

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel. if you are a party to a litigation in a civil court in Ontario either as a self represented litigants or you are being represented by a lawyer... you may be entitled to certain cost with respect to that proceeding. Generally, if you are successful. What are those costs? What are the circumstances in which those costs are awarded? What are the fundamental principles for the court to decide what cost to award? We will cover those topics in today’s lecture.

We begin with our usual disclaimer that this course is not legal advice, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals. We’ll explain to you what is the cost award, what is that money that you get, what is the purpose of a cost award, what are some of the factors that the court will consider in awarding cost, what are some of the underlying guiding principles for the court to keep in mind, what is the record of activities, why do you need it, what is BIll of Costs and Cost Outline... these are specific documents that you may need to prepare, what are those about... we’ll explain that.

What is the cost award? it’s money that is given to you that is ordered by the court against one party and so, the money is related to either a step– one specific step in a proceeding. So, for instance for a motion that you may have brought or may have dealt with and then the cost may be in relation to that motion... or with respect to an entire proceeding. So, it could be related to the cost, could be related to the time that you commence the court action to the time you were successful at trial. So, it could cover any step in that proceeding. Generally speaking, costs include lawyers fees. Traditionally, parties retain lawyers to fight their cases and civil courts Ontario... that scenario has been changing increasingly. But generally speaking, traditionally, these are lawyers fees... the lawyers time, the lawyers hours, that he or she spent on your file with respect to your claim with respect to your court action. Those are lawyers fees. The other component are the disbursements... these are court fees, process server fees, if you went through the discovery process then, you know. ordering the transcripts for discoveries of booking the room, the court reporter... those costs, mediation costs, copying, binding, faxing, all of these costs that you may have incurred with respect to your civil action. Those are called dispursements. In some cases, those costs could be significant. For instance, in personal injury cases where you may be required to provide doctors reports, and these all third party medical reports. The cost could be in thousands of dollars. So, these are the disbursements…. could be significant and these are also recoverable. So, there are two components– lawyers fees and disbursements, generally... but as I said increasingly we have self represented litigants who are representing their cases by themselves in the courts of Ontario... some reports suggest that about sixty to sixty five percent of litigants in Ontario Courts are self represented. So, self represented litigants if they are spending their own time with respect to their case, then obviously, they’re entitled to certain cost the court will award... and costs may not be as much as a lawyers fees, but they will get certain costs. There could be other scenarios in which a self represented litigant may seek guidance or assistance from a lawyer or a paralegal from time to time, so, there may be a combination of cost– self represented litigants own costs and then some partial cost that the litigant may have incurred through through the guidance counseling of a lawyer or a paralegal. So, these are the costs award. What is the purpose of the cost award? The basic purpose is that the winning side gets some reasonable indemnification for the cost that they have incurred. So, going back, so, let’s take the example that you commence a court action against a party for one hundred thousand dollars and let’s say you were successful. The court at the end of the day, at the end of trial, gave you the judgment that the other side is required to pay you one hundred thousand dollars, as you claimed. So you get your one hundred thousand dollars with respect to your fundamental case, but what happens to the cost that you incurred in the process of that fight? So, from the time you commence, you incurred court fees, maybe legal fees, disbursements. What happened to that and the court may award you that cost to a certain degree. So that’s a reasonable indemnification and remember that you never ever get actual cost that you have incurred. So, if you, let’s say, you incurred one hundred thousand dollars in your legal costs that includes dispersement, legal fees, whatever... you have incurred one hundred thousand dollars... you will never get one hundred thousand dollars, I shouldn’t say never, but it is extremely extremely unlikely that you will get one hundred percent of the cost awarded. So, you spent one hundred thousand dollars, and generally speaking, you may get about fifty thousand dollars back, you’ll get fifty cents on a dollar, sixty cents on a dollar, maybe seventy cents on a dollar but you will not get the full cost. So, it’s not the actual cost of the court will award and the concepts... one concept is called partial indemnity. You will see this word being used in Rules of Civil Procedure, it has a specific definition, I’m not going to get into that... but generally speaking, what you should understand from partial indemnity is that you may recover about thirty percent, forty percent, maybe fifty percent of your actual costs. If you’ve spent one hundred thousand dollars, generally yields, you’ll get thirty maybe forty thousand dollars recoverable as costs, right, so thirty forty cents on a dollar not one hundred cents on the dollar. The other concept is substantial indemnity which is also defined in the rules and I’m not going to get into definition, but generally speaking, you may get about fifty to seventy five percent of your actual cost to substantial indemnity. Now generally speaking, the court generally awards partial indemnity. Right? So, the majority of the cases this is what the court is awarding in costs not this one. And there are specific circumstances in which the court may work substantial indemnity and we’re not going to discuss that today but but this to give you a sense that these are available in the Rules of Civil Procedure.

OK, remember that the court may even award costs against the winning side. The basic principle is that the winning side does get cost awarded for it, against the other side, but there may be circumstances in which the court may consider that the winning side has to pay the cost of the losing side…. and so, there are specific ways in which that’s awarded. Generally, if your conduct was so bad in terms of litigation, in terms of the conduct of that litigation, that even though you won the case, the judge believes that you should not be entitled to your cost, or worse, that you may have to pay the cost of the other side. So, it doesn’t happen that often but it does happen based upon the conduct. So, what you want to keep in mind, with respect to the cost award– it is that the cost of war is at the discretion of the judge. Section 131 of the Courts of Justice Act, show you in a moment, that is the one that provides that the judge the power to award costs and the judges have a huge, huge, huge, discretion. So, and again, the in terms of the cost award and the way the judges will decide the cost award is not really a science, it’s an art and it’s based upon a number of factors and principals we’ll talk about that. Let’s look at Section 131 of the Court of Justice Act and it states one 131 sub 1– subject to the provision of an act or rules of court, the cost of an incidental to a proceeding, or a step in a proceeding, are in the discretion of the court– that’s important– and the court may determine by whom and to what extent the cost shall be paid. So the key message here is that it’s in the discretion of the judge, you want to keep that in mind, and second, authority that you want to look at is the is Rule 57 of the rules of civil procedure and we’ll show you that in a little bit... but those are the two items that you want to look at if you want to understand more about the cost award. Now, factors for awarding cost. It’s covered in rule 57.01. Some factors I’ll show you and then we’ll take you to the rule... but what is the reasonable expectation of the winning side? The court will consider that, in terms of awarding costs. If there’s lawyers involved, what was the lawyer’s hourly rates and what was the amount of time that the lawyer spent on the file? What was the amount that you had claimed in that court action or defending it? What is the amount that you actually recovered? If you claimed one hundred thousand dollars in your claim, but you recover ten thousand dollars then the cost of war is going to be significantly different and there are rules about that as well... what was the complexity of the proceeding? So, these are some of the factors, let’s look at rule 57.01 which talks about these factors, the amount that you probably recovered, the amount claimed, and the amount recovered in the proceeding apportionment of liability. Let’s say, was the defendant liable for the for the case one hundred percent or were there other parties where the plaintiff also had some liability? Complexity of the proceeding, importance of the issues, for the court, for the public, the conduct of any party that tended to shorten or to lengthen unnecessarily the duration of the proceeding. So, this is the parties conduct... if you took certain steps in the proceeding that unnecessarily lengthened the duration of the preceding, you are going to get some sanctions by the court with respect to cost award... or, whether any steps in the proceeding was improper, vexatious, or unnecessary... the court will consider that. Taken through negligence, mistake, or excessive caution a parties denial of or refusal to admit anything that should have been admitted. So, when you look at these factors, what is the overarching principles? The overarching principle is that you must act reasonably at all times during the litigation, during the proceeding. And what do you what do I mean by acting reasonably? I’ll give you an example, let’s say you serve a statement of claim on the other side and under the rules that the defending side has to serve their defense within twenty days, thirty days, forty days, sixty days depending upon what rules apply... and the other side contacts you, let’s say it was due in thirty days, the other side contacts you, and says to you listen we can’t serve you our defense in thirty days... but we’ll do that within forty five days, is that OK? You may turn around and say, “absolutely not, I want strict compliance with the rules”... meaning I want you to serve your defense within thirty days or I’m going to go and note you in default... meaning that you will not be able to file your defense... and you can actually do that. So technically speaking, you can demand a strict compliance of that rule but what’s going to happen, in majority of the cases, what will happen is you noted this party in default, you denied them the opportunity to serve there, and file their defense. Now you will go and bring a motion for default judgment because that’s what naturally will be the next step... and the other party will come and defend that motion for default judgment and present to the court, that they wanted to serve the defense but it was getting delayed by fifteen days and you refused to do that. The court may, in majority of the cases, will find your conduct to be unreasonable and then that may be a situation where you acted unreasonably because it was only a matter of fifteen days... and that may be there may be a circumstance in which fifteen days may not may be as a big deal in your specific case... but generally speaking, if the court finds that that was unreasonable a few that you did not allow another fifteen days for a party to file their defense, you may even get a cost award against you. So acting reasonably at all times and there could be many, many, more examples we can talk about. But generally speaking, if your conduct is unreasonable in advancing the litigation, then the court may award costs against you. So the reasonable ness is one principle that the court will look at. Then, settlements are always encouraged in courts, the court will always be looking into what did the parties do to resolve this matter? What kind of offers, settlement offers, did they make to each other? When did they make those offers... and the court will consider that because, ideally, the court will like parties to resolve their disputes through a mutual agreement and not waste the court and everyone else’s time and resources.

So, you want to keep full records of your activities and that’s important because if you have a lawyer... you will notice that the lawyer will have a detailed log of their activities based upon the date and the time and the number of hours and minutes that they spent on your file and it will indicate what kind of activity they were performing at that time. So, you want to do the same for yourself and you will need that at the end of the day when you are requesting for your cost. So, if you are researching a specific case, then you want to put a note that on October so and so date to you spent three hours researching this part for your case. If you’re preparing certain documents, let’s say, statement of defense, then you want to.. you want to note down how many hours you spent doing that activity and on what date. So, detailed log of activities is important. You also want to keep an account of disbursement– so, keep all invoices, whatever the cost, additional costs you have incurred... you want to keep detailed amounts in record and you want to keep as much invoices as possible because you may need them, at the end of the day to show to the court that you actually incurred those costs. Now there are two kind of documents mentioned in the rules, one is called Bill of cost, and second is called cost outline and then essentially, these documents basically explain the amount of time that you’ve spent doing certain activities and what are the disbursement that you have incurred. So, especially the cost outlined, when you have finished your case, let’s say a trial and the trial is over... the court will ask you to provide cost outline. If the cost are not agreed by the parties, then the court will ask for the costs outlined in which you will explain to the court why X amount of dollars should be awarded to you, in costs... and that’s your sort of persuasive argument, if I may say that... that you will have to present it to the court and the court will review that and then award costs. So, these two forms are important and we’ll cover those topics, those forms, in a separate lecture, and we’ll probably go through cost outline to show you what kind of information goes in a cost outline and how do you go about filling that out. So, that that’s about keeping records…. essentially what you want to keep in mind with respect to cost is the principle of proportionality. The word proportionality is a very important word in a civil litigation matter, what you are doing is that proportional to your underlying case... if you have a case worth ten thousand dollars and the issues are not complicated but you are bringing motion after motion just to, you know, create trouble for the other side and increase their costs and whatnot... the court may find that to be disproportionate conduct and then the rules of proportionality will be applied and you may get sanctions against you for acting like that. So, always act reasonably in a litigation, in a civil litigation, so, at the end of the day when you’re in front of a judge you can hold your head up high and indicate to the judge that you acted reasonably at all times with respect to the conduct of the litigation and you did not take any steps, you did not do anything that was unreasonable. Always try to settle if you can and keep those two principles in mind and hopefully this gives you a broad sense of how the costs are awarded, especially if you’re a self represented you may not have any understanding of this.

So, hopefully, this explains to you... we’ll talk about Rule 49 offers I believe to have a lecture on Rule 49, but if not I’ll check and I’ll put a lecture on Rule 49 which is important with respect to offers of settlements and what is their role with respect to the actual cost that you are awarded at the end of the day. Avoid unnecessary of accessions steps, we’ve already covered that, and so, please contact us, give us your feedback and any questions or comments you may have we look forward to your feedback... thank you for watching!

Show Notes:

https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/regu/rro-1990-reg-194/latest/

https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/courts/civil/fact_sheet_simplified_procedure_76.pdf

Lecture Slides:

Have a question about this video?

The team at Formative LLP has created a free discussion forum where anyone can post a legal question and get feedback from the wider audience of self represented litigants.  Join the discussion today!

Machine Transcription:

Welcome everyone this is Amer Mushtaq from You Counsel.

A lot of people in Ontario understand that when you have a claim for twenty five thousand dollars or less, you go to small claims court in Ontario, if the claim is from more than twenty five thousand dollars you go to Superior Court of Justice Ontario. What a lot of people don’t know is that within the Superior Court of Justice, there is something called Simplified Procedure and there is another process called Ordinary Procedure. Both processes have differences, both processes have advantages and disadvantages... so, in today’s lecture I will talk about simplified procedure which is contained in Rule seventy six of the rules of civil procedure.

Before we begin, we’ll start with our usual disclaimer, that this course is not legal advice, so, if you have any specific questions you must contact a lawyer or a paralegal or contact the Law Society of Upper Canada for any referrals.

We’ll cover topics such as when is commencing a court action and simplified procedure mandatory... when is it optional... what are the circumstances in which you cannot commence a court action in simplified procedure. How do you go about electing a simplified procedure and in your court action what are some of the major differences between the ordinary procedure and simplified procedure.. .we’ll give you some tips about choosing which one is better for you we’ll provide some additional resources.

When is the simplified procedure mandatory? These are the conditions. Your claim should be less then hundred thousand dollars or less and this excludes interest and costs... so, your case is for one hundred thousand dollars or less and your claim is either for money or for real property such as a land or personal property. So, if you meet this criteria which is hundred thousand dollars or less claim for money or real property or personal property then you are required to commence your court action in the simplified procedure and if you don’t... there may be cost sanctions against you even if you are successful at the end of trial, if the judge finds that this case should have been commenced under simplified procedure and you commence it in the ordinary procedure, the judge made award cost against you or may not even award cost to you even if you are successful. So, this is mandatory. You must keep that in mind.

When is the simplified procedure optional: if your claim is for more than one hundred thousand dollars and you meet the criteria for money real property or personal property, you can still commence a court action under simplified procedure …this point is important. Even if your case is for more than one hundred thousand dollars, you can still commence and simplified procedure but what happens is if you commence a claim which is more than hundred thousand dollars, under simplified procedure, the defendant has the option to object to it. The defendant may say that under the rules, you must have one hundred thousand dollars or less in the claim, you have more, “I, the defendant, am objecting to you commencing the case in the simplified procedure”. So, when the defendant objects and then that objection comes in the statement of defense... when the defendant objects, then you have two options either you 1) withdraw your claim which exceeds one hundred thousand dollars. So, that portion of the claim, in other words, you are limiting the money value of your claim to one hundred thousand dollars, or you can say I will continue this action in the ordinary procedure and if you continue in the ordinary procedure you have a form that you need to share and file. So, that there is a separate discussion that we’ll have on that form but you can commence a court action of four hundred thousand dollars or more than one hundred thousand dollars in simplified procedures as long as the defendant doesn’t object... and this point is important because there may be strategic reasons for you to commence your court action under simplified procedure even if the value is more than one hundred thousand dollars... there may be circumstances where the defendant may not care, there may be circumstances where the defendant may not notice that you have commenced in simplified procedure. So, you can benefit from the advantages of simplified procedure, even if your case is for more than one hundred thousand dollars as long as the defendant does not object.

Now what are the circumstances? What kind of cases are there in which simplified procedure is not available? Number one... class proceedings... if your matter belongs to a class proceeding action or application, you cannot commence it under simplified procedures. If it relates to construction lien actions there’s a separate legislation for that called construction lien act and except in those circumstances, you cannot commence a court action under simplified procedure and there is some exception with respect to trust claims that we’re not discussing today. If your matter relates to family law issues, you cannot commence under simplified procedure. If it’s a small claims matter, obviously, twenty five thousand dollars or less, you cannot commence under simplified procedure and if it’s an application and not a court action you cannot commence under simplified rules.

Now how do you go about electing simplified procedure? First of all, keep in mind that when you commence a court action and you do not elect simplified procedure... by default, the matter goes into ordinary procedure. So if you don’t do anything, if you don’t do the election, then the matter is going under ordinary procedure. In order for you to get the simplified procedure, you have to take certain steps. Step number one you will have to write this language. This action is brought against you under the simplified procedure provided in Rule seventy six of the rules of civil procedure you have to write this down and where do you write this down? Just about the heading where it says claim, so, just above that in capital letters you write this down, very clearly... that this action is being commenced under simplified procedure. So, that’s step number one. Step number two, you correctly fill out the information for court use form which is a form that you filed with the court along with your claim. We have two separate lectures, one for the statement of claim and one for information the court hears form that are already posted if you want to know more about these two topics by all means check those lectures out.

So, what are the main differences between ordinary and simplified procedure? We’ll discuss some of the main differences. Number one the simplified procedure limits the number of hours that are available for oral discovery. In an ordinary procedure, you have up to seven hours to examine each party, so, for every party you can have seven hours to conduct your oral examination for discovery. In simplified procedure, those number of hours are limited to two. That’s an important difference with respect to oral history. Number two, you do not have the option of conducting written discoveries under simplified procedure which is an option available under ordinary procedure. Also, under simplified procedure, you cannot conduct cross-examination on an affidavit on a motion which is under Rule thirty nine point zero two you are allowed to do that but for simplified procedures you are not allowed to cross-examine on an affidavit on a on a motion. Similarly, you cannot cross-examine a witness for a motion under Rule thirty nine point zero three which is allowed in the ordinary procedure. Also, before you go to trial, so at the time, when you are serving your affadavit of documents... under simplified procedure, you are required to disclose the names and addresses or contact information of all persons who have knowledge of the matters in the claim... of occurrences, of the matters that are in the claim, they have personal knowledge off. So they have potential witnesses to this court action. And finally you can conduct you can ask for a summary trial in simplify procedure. And a summary trial is sort of a fast paced trial in which part of your evidence can be provided through an affidavit and some part can be provided orally. So, it’s generally speaking, if it’s a summary trial, then it and it takes much less time than an ordinary trial. So these are some of the major differences between the ordinary procedure and the simplified procedure... and if you notice that by limiting the number of hours for the discovery for oral discovery and by disallowing the cross examinations and affidavits... by requiring you to disclose the names of individuals who have knowledge of the occurrences, by giving you the option of summary trial... what the court system is allowing is that to allow you to move your matter cost effectively and speedily in the system That’s what the underlying purpose of these rules. So, once you know the differences between the ordinary and simplified procedure and you know when you must commence and when you have the option.. then it’s really a strategic decision. How you go about collecting the procedure, when you do have that option. So the strategic decision is based upon which side of the fence you are on. Are you the plantiff? Are you the defendant? Is it in your interest to move your matter speedily or is it in your interest to take advantage of the ordinary procedure and hope that the matter drags on a bit based upon the choices that may be available under the rules? Is it to your advantage that you want to move this matter forward cost effectively or would you prefer to have more cost to you and the most cost to the other side and that gives you some advantage with respect to the litigation. So, it’s a strategic decision whether you want less cost or more cost. Also, what is the value of oral discovery? Is this a case where you actually need up to seven hours to examine the other side in oral discoveries or it doesn’t matter to you? Is two hours sufficient? Or you maybe in a situation where you have sufficient documentary evidence that you don’t even need oral discoveries. I do a lot of cases in which, based on the evidence that’s available to my client, that I don’t need oral discoveries and we move directly to trial stage and then move the matter even faster and cost effectively. So, the value of all discovery needs to be in your mind and also keep in mind that two hours when you are chit chatting with your friends... two hours is time that goes in a blink, but when you are examining some some person for two hours where you have specific questions to ask and all that person is allowed to do is simply answer those questions and nothing else... two hours is a very long time. You can investigate someone’s entire life in two hours, it’s such a long time and obviously seven hours is significantly longer. So, you want to know or clearly understand, what is the value of your oral discovery and is two hours sufficient in your case? Or would you require seven hours and, in some cases, you may require seven hours and that’s fine.

What is the value of summary trial? Is your case sufficiently simple that the evidence can be presented by affidavits and then you can still get a fair trial? Then you proceed with a summary trial, ask for it, it is subject to the agreement on the other side. So, overall, what you must understand is simplified procedure is generally a speedy process. You can get to trial pretty quickly and simplified procedure by spending less amount of money. In a lot of my cases, where we’re proceeding with simplified procedure, we’re able to get to trial within a year... which is kind of unheard of in the legal world but it’s possible. Whereas in the ordinary procedure, it takes much, much, longer. So, it’s a speedy process, it’s cost effective, and you should take advantage of the process if that’s what is in your favor.

There are some additional resources. Obviously, you should check the rules of civil procedure, that provides rule seventy six and by all means read the rule. We have not exhaustively covered it. Please check that out and in the future lectures, we’ll sort of taken apart piece by piece and explain more about different aspects of Rule seventy six. Also, check out this resource, that has been put by the Minister of attorney general which provides a fact sheet about simplified procedure. A lot of the information I’ve already covered in this lecture... but by all means check that information out. Hopefully this does give you a good sense of what the simplified procedure is, if you didn’t know it already and gave you some tips about the advantages and disadvantages of choosing which procedure you want to elect for your specific case. Thank you for watching and please send us your feedback.