B.C.’s digital justice progress encouraging
Tribunal for strata, small-claims disputes is speeding up the process of resolution
A year and a half into B.C.’s trailblazing foray into digital justice, Civil Resolution Tribunal chair Shannon Salter says the new electronic legal processes appear to be working.
“So far, so good,” Salter said. In July 2016, after a lengthy gestation period, the tribunal took over from the B.C. Supreme Court the burden of hearing strata disputes and on June 1 of this year it assumed from the provincial court the handling of most small claims for damages amounting to $5,000 or less.
Half a decade in gestation, the groundbreaking tribunal was a response to increasing access-to-justice barriers and intended to relieve some of the docket-clotting backlog in the bricks-and-mortar courts.
For strata owners in particular, the CRT promised an easily accessible and affordable option to settle disputes that previously had to be heard by the province’s top trial court.
For those with small claims, it meant mostly easier access. In the last six months, 2,277 small-claims applications were filed and about 700 already have been resolved.
“The process is moving along smoothly, although we’re still learning day to day,” Salter said.
“We’ve learned small claims have a very high settlement rate if you can give people the tools they need.
“It’s about an 85 per cent settlement rate without going to a tribunal member for a binding decision.”
Of the 700 cases completed, only about a dozen went to a tribunal member, she added — most were settled in the negotiation and facilitation stages for the claims. Salter found that satisfying. “We get a lot of attention being the first online tribunal, but our overarching goal is to make the process more understandable, less complex, less expensive and more accessible for people and a big way of doing that is helping and supporting people reach a consensual agreement everybody is happy with,” Salter said.
If a party objects to the CRT small-claims finding, they can appeal to the provincial court, although there will be increased costs.
“There was only one (appeal) so far — that’s really re-assuring,” Salter said.
She pointed out that the CRT also received only one application for an exemption to the mandatory system — an applicant or a respondent can ask to go to ordinary court due to special circumstances.
In terms of strata conflicts, the tribunal has more experience.
“We have found they are quite distinct from small-claims disputes in certain ways,” Salter explained.
“They differ in that the parties can be a little more entrenched. They are more difficult to resolve consensually and are more likely to go to a tribunal member for a final determination.”
Since it began accepting claims 18 months ago, the CRT has handled about 800 strata applications — about 400 have been accepted, 84 completed to a final decision and about 200 have been resolved consensually. There are more than 100 written decisions on the website, she said, but not all are finalized.
So far, strata organizations are winning, hands down.
Salter said she was watching the outcomes, given that the CRT prohibits lawyer participation, and the results could suggest unequal representation — hapless owners, say, versus professional strata councils.
“It’s too early to draw any conclusions from that,” she cautioned.
“But the CRT works hard to even the playing field level. I also think having the solution explorer up front, that provides free legal information and tools for everybody, helps to correct information imbalances between sometimes more sophisticated and less sophisticated parties.”
She noted that out of all decisions, only one was granted leave to appeal.
That is also a big difference between the civil and strata CRT processes — strata owners who want to appeal face an expensive and complicated Supreme Court proceeding.
Still, CRT satisfaction surveys indicate 90 per cent of respondents felt they were treated fairly, 82 per cent found the online application easy to understand and roughly 80 per cent thought the overall process was intuitive.
The CRT budget this year was $2.9 million, mostly staff salaries, which will grow to $5.1 million for the next fiscal year as more people are hired.
Encouragingly, Salter said, thousands have accessed the online legal information, tools, letter templates and resources the CRT website provides — far more than have applied to the tribunal.
“That’s been so popular — it suggests people are using the template letters to resolve their disputes without even having to file a claim,” she said.
“Since June 1 ... over 10,000 have used the small-claims explorer.
“To the degree you can empower people by giving them the information and tools as early as possible, then you are helping them resolve their dispute in the most accessible, least expensive way possible.”
And about 45 per cent are using the tools outside of traditional court hours, primarily weekday evenings, maybe in their pyjamas.
Of the 3,000 strata and smallclaims applications, Salter said, only three people requested not to use email as the primary communication method and of the 350 to 400 applications received each month, only about five will be filed on paper.
But these are early days, Salter said. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”