The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General has announced that civil claims online filing (
http://ontario.ca/civilclaims) will be available across Ontario as of November 27, 2017. The service had previously only been available in six pilot sites (Brampton, Ottawa, London, Newmarket, Sudbury and Toronto). MAG has provided the following information about the service and the expansion, which we set out below:
The civil claims service enables you to start a civil action online in the Superior Court of Justice — 24/7 — without visiting a courthouse. With this service, users can submit the following documents for filing with the Superior Court of Justice online:
- Statement of Claim
- Notice of Action
- Affidavit of Litigation Guardian of a Plaintiff under a Disability
- Request for Bilingual Proceedings
- Consent to File Documents in French.
The service allows lawyers to file a claim online easily. Lawyers don’t have to fill out the same identifying information every time they submit a claim for filing. The service also allows:
- online payment of court fees by credit card or Interac;
- delivery of a court-issued Statement of Claim or Notice of Action by email;
- draft submissions to be saved and submitted at a later time; and
- online transactions to be tracked (online access to a history of a user’s submissions, draft submissions and online fee payments).
As MAG continues to expand this service, users will be able to file additional documents online.
In addition, MAG has provided two additional documents:
- a poster listing the simplicity and benefits of the service; [link]
- a guide on how to set up a Justice Services Online account, which is required to access the civil claims online filling service. [link]