Hello everyone; as of October 1, 2025 the damage limit for this court will increase from $35,000.00 to $50,000.00.
We will have to check the actual regulation, as often procedural changes are retro- active, i.e. this may catch cases in the system now that have not reached trial.
This is good news for both plaintiffs (employees) and defendants (employers) in the wrongful dismissal context since I have seen many defendant’s lawyers over the years take files through various grinding procedural steps in Superior Court, at great cost to the parties. This will largely eliminate the grind.
What will become interesting over time is Small Claims Court rule 134, which allows a pre-trial settlement conference judge to order a party to produce documents. There is very little case law to guide a pre-trial settlement conference judge as to how wide a production order should be. Stay tuned in this area.