Transfer SCSM to Superior Court (General)

Kreppner v. HMQ, 2019 ONSC 6667 (CanLII)

[1] The moving parties are Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario represented by the Ministry of Finance (the “Crown”) and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”). The Crown is a defendant in four actions pending in the Small Claims Court (three in Oshawa and one in Belleville). MPAC is a defendant in the action brought by the responding party, Josef Kreppner, but not in the other three actions.

[2] Each of the responding parties is a plaintiff in one of the four actions commenced in the Small Claims Court.

[19] The issues on these motions are (i) whether I should exercise my inherent jurisdiction to transfer the four Small Claims Court actions to the Superior Court of Justice; (ii) if the actions are transferred, whether they should they be transferred to Toronto; and (iii) if the actions are transferred, whether they should they be consolidated.

[21] In Vigna v. Toronto Stock Exchange, [1998] O.J. No. 4924 (Div. Ct.) the Divisional Court heard an appeal from the decision of the application judge on an application by the defendant for the transfer of an action from the Small Claims Court to the Superior Court. A transfer of the action under s. 107(1)(d) of the Courts of Justice Act could not be made because s. 107(2) provides that a proceeding in the Small Claims Court shall not be transferred to the Superior Court without the consent of the plaintiff in the proceeding in the Small Claims Court and the plaintiff did not consent. The Divisional Court held that a judge has the necessary jurisdiction to transfer an action from the Small Claims Court to the Superior Court, without the plaintiff’s consent, under the judge’s inherent power as a Superior Court judge to control the process of the Courts. The Divisional Court provided guidance concerning the circumstances under which this jurisdiction should be exercised:

We do not mean it to be taken that a transfer should be made in every case where it is requested. It is important for the court to scrutinize the issues raised where such a request is made to determine whether those issues are capable of being justly and fairly resolved by the procedures available in Small Claims Court. In many if not most cases the Small Claims Court procedures will suffice. This particular case is, in our view, one of the exceptions where the issues raised are of such a nature and complexity that the available procedures are insufficient for their just and fair determination on the merits.

The Divisional Court held that in the circumstances[1], this was one of the rare cases where an order transferring an action from the Small Claims Court to the Superior Court should be made.

[22] In Farlow v. Hospital for Sick Children, [2009] O.J. No. 4847, T. P. Herman J. held that the decision as to whether the court should transfer an action from the Small Claims Court to the Superior Court involves the balancing of various factors including (i) the complexity of the issues; (ii) the importance of expert evidence to a determination of the case; (iii) the need for discovery; (iv) whether the case involves issues of general importance; and (v) the desire for a just and fair determination. Justice Herman held that balanced against these factors is the principle that a court should rarely exercise its discretion to transfer a case and he observed at para. 21:

In general, if a litigant chooses to pursue a case in Small Claims Court, that choice should be respected. Of particular concern in this case is the potential that the transfer to a higher court may increase the costs for the litigants and have a negative impact on access to justice [citation omitted].