I've watched many cases and would love to tell you that they're interesting but in fact they're quite sad and generally make people look petty, rental board cases are more interesting if you want to sit around and watch the wheels of justice turn.
The local small claims court has taken to proceeding in a different way recently.
Instead of both parties appearing before a judge and seeing their thing decided relatively quickly, the plaintiff now shows up, tells his story and the judge takes note and possibly tells him to submit more documents if required.
I guess the defendant is then offered a chance to make his case in some other forum but the two no longer sit toe-to-toe. I'll try to figure it out and update this entry with a cogent explanation.
Anyway one recent case might be instructive to those who seek retribution.
In Oct. 2010, Laval resident George Bitsanis bought a TV for $2,200 from Centre Hi Fi.
He complained of fog inside the TV and they came and replaced it with a new one just two days before Christmas. In May 2011 the same problem occurred and they replaced it again. And in October 2011 it happened for a third time but this time Sharp simply refused to switch TVs.
"Seems like smoke from cigarettes," the technician wrote. The TV required some sorta cleaning but was otherwise functional. Bitsanis didn't have any real argument refuting that claim other than that he had taken to smoking only in the kitchen.
For some reason Bitsanis was claiming $6,000 from Sharp.
I don't really get why people do that because it never works.
In another sorta interesting case someone named Joseph Faraj said that a billing dispute with Fido led to his credit rating to be unfairly damaged, which he considered slander worth $3,000 in compensation. The court said they had no place in dealing with complaints of that nature and dismissed the case. Probably wouldn't have hurt to have known this in advance.