The cost of justice ...

A recent decision in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court highlights the problems with the current justice system.

In Fougere v. Enfield Hardware the defendant homeowners had a cottage that they wanted the plaintiff builder to renovate into a retirement home. The parties entered into a contract in September 2001. The contract price was $121,000. The defendants occupied the house in June 2002. By this time they had paid all the contract price save for a holdback of $14,000. They complained of numerous deficiencies, and refused to pay the balance.

The builder sued for the holdback. The homeowners counterclaimed for the cost of various deficiencies and damages.

The action went to trial in April 2006, four years after the defendants occupied the house. The trial took 9 days and was spread over a year, with the last day in April 2007. The decision was delivered in February 2009.

The result? The judge found that the defendants had established $7,000 worth of deficiencies, which he deducted from the holdback of $14,000. The balance of the holdback was ordered to be paid to the plaintiff. He also dismissed the balance of the defendants' counterclaim.

So, an action for a holdback of $14,000, which is well within the $25,000 jurisdiction of the Nova Scotia Small Claims Court, ended up taking almost 7 years (and 9 days of trial) to get a result that saw one party ordered to pay roughly $7,000 to the other. One shudders to think of the cost, both in money, time and emotion, that was spent by the parties to reach such a resolution of their dispute.

Such a result cannot be right. Nor can the blame for such a mismatch between cost (in time and money) and result be laid at the door of the parties. Surely the justice system has an obligation to develop procedures that would offer a quicker and cheaper resolution to such disputes.