The BC Government has passed legislation which will change how society disputes are handled. All societies, members, and non-profit partners should be aware of these changes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On May 7, 2018, the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act<\/em><\/a> passed third reading, with its changes to come into force by regulation at a future date. The Civil Resolution Tribunal (“CRT”) is effectively a new Small Claims court, where certain low-value disputes are downloaded to lawyers rather than judges, and parties must<\/span> represent themselves without a lawyer, absent some exceptions. The majority of claims are to be considered by way of written submissions, with a judicial review being available to the BC Supreme Court in chambers if the tribunal member made an error of law, fact, or mixed fact and law.<\/p>\n The idea behind the CRT is laudable: make the process easy, fast and affordable for individuals for low-value or low-complexity claims, and get them out of the court system to free up judicial resources. The CRT to date has been used for smaller debt matters and strata claims. However, the new amendments make a number of changes, outlined in this Canadian Bar Association position paper<\/a>\u00a0and were developed and read without a detailed consultation period. You may have heard of these changes, particularly those which involve the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and low-value motor vehicle claims.<\/p>\n One of the changes, almost as an after thought, is to send certain issues relating to member discipline, interpretation of society bylaws, and production of society records to the CRT rather than the BC Supreme Court, which previously had exclusive jurisdiction over such issues.<\/p>\n The concerns with this new jurisdiction are the following:<\/p>\n The relevant sections of the amending act are below:<\/p>\n Claims within jurisdiction of tribunal for society claims [To be inserted into the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n 129<\/strong>\u00a0 (1) Except as otherwise provided in section 113\u00a0[restricted authority of tribunal]<\/em>\u00a0or in this Division, the tribunal has jurisdiction in a dispute over a claim, in respect of the\u00a0Societies Act<\/em>, concerning one or more of the following:<\/p>\n (a) the interpretation or application of the\u00a0Societies Act<\/em>\u00a0or a regulation, constitution or bylaw under that Act, including a request to inspect, or to receive a copy of, a record of a society;<\/p>\n (b) an action or threatened action by the society or its directors in relation to a member;<\/p>\n (c) a decision of the society or its directors in relation to a member.<\/p>\n (2) For the purposes of this Act, the tribunal is to be considered to have specialized expertise in respect of claims within the jurisdiction of the tribunal under this Division.<\/p>\n Who may request resolution by civil resolution tribunal [To be inserted into the\u00a0Societies Act<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n 109.2<\/strong>\u00a0 (1) A society, or a member of a society, may make a request under section 4\u00a0[asking the tribunal to resolve a claim]<\/em>\u00a0of the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>\u00a0asking the civil resolution tribunal to resolve a dispute concerning a society claim.<\/p>\n (2) A person [NB: a non-member]<\/em>, other than a person referred to in subsection (1), who claims<\/p>\n (a) to be entitled, under section 24\u00a0[inspection of records]<\/em>\u00a0of this Act, to inspect a record of a society,<\/p>\n (b) to be entitled, under section 27\u00a0[copies of records]<\/em>\u00a0of this Act, to receive a copy of a record of a society, or<\/p>\n (c) to be entitled, under section 28\u00a0[copies of financial statements]<\/em>\u00a0of this Act, to receive a copy of a record of a society<\/p>\n may make a request under section 4 of the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>\u00a0asking the civil resolution tribunal to resolve a dispute concerning a society claim that relates to the person inspecting or receiving a copy of the record.<\/p>\n (3) A person may make a request in accordance with subsection (1) or (2) whether or not the person has applied to the registrar for an order under section 107\u00a0[registrar or court may order access or copies]<\/em>\u00a0of this Act.<\/p>\n (4) Nothing in this section or the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>\u00a0limits a person’s right to apply to the registrar for an order under section 107 of this Act.<\/p>\n (5) A request under section 4 of the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>\u00a0may not be made with respect to any matter relating to the termination of membership in a society.<\/p>\n Certain claims are beyond the jurisdiction of the CRT.<\/p>\n Claims beyond jurisdiction of tribunal for society claims [To be inserted into the\u00a0Civil Resolution Tribunal Act<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n 130<\/strong>\u00a0 (1) The tribunal does not have jurisdiction under this Division in relation to a claim that may be dealt with, by the Supreme Court, under any of the following provisions of the\u00a0Societies Act<\/em>:<\/p>\n (a) the following provisions of Part 5\u00a0[Management]<\/em>:<\/p>\n (i) section 44 (3)\u00a0[persons qualified to be directors]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (ii) section 58\u00a0[validity of contracts]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (iii) section 59\u00a0[directors’ liability for money or other property distributed]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (iv) section 65 (2)\u00a0[indemnification or payment prohibited]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (b) section 80\u00a0[powers of court respecting general meetings]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (c) Part 8\u00a0[Remedies]<\/em><\/p>\n [Note:<\/strong> As of this writing, Part 8 [Remedies<\/em>] includes ss. 102 to 106, which include the oppression remedy for disputes between members and the society; derivative actions which allow interested individuals to bring claims on behalf of the society, when it can’t do so in its own name; compliance \/ restraining injunctions to force compliance with bylaws; court’s power to remedy irregularities in a society’s affairs (the most common court application); and indemnification\/relief in legal proceedings; as well as ss. 107 to 109, disputes regarding records];<\/p>\n (d) the following provisions of Part 12\u00a0[Special Societies]<\/em>:<\/p>\n (i) section 193\u00a0[altering constitution to become member-funded society]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (ii) section 194\u00a0[other restrictions on becoming member-funded society]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (iii) section 205\u00a0[injunction]<\/em>.<\/p>\n (2) The tribunal does not have jurisdiction under this Division in relation to a claim that is in respect of any of the following matters or provisions of the\u00a0Societies Act<\/em>:<\/p>\n (a) a matter relating to the termination of membership in the society;<\/p>\n (b) a matter relating to the liquidation, dissolution or restoration of a society, including under Part 10\u00a0[Liquidation, Dissolution and Restoration]<\/em>, except section 143 (1) (b)\u00a0[duties of liquidator]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (c) Part 7\u00a0[Corporate Reorganizations]<\/em>;<\/p>\n (d) Part 9\u00a0[Audit]<\/em>.<\/p>\n (3) The tribunal does not have jurisdiction under this Division in relation to any of the following:<\/p>\n (a) a claim that is an appeal of a direction, decision, order, ruling or refusal of the registrar;<\/p>\n (b) a claim to which Part 5\u00a0[Resolving Disputes]<\/em>\u00a0or 5.1\u00a0[Administrative Penalties]<\/em>\u00a0of the\u00a0Residential Tenancy Act<\/em>\u00a0applies or Part 6\u00a0[Resolving Disputes]<\/em>\u00a0or 6.1\u00a0[Administrative Penalties]<\/em>\u00a0of the\u00a0Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act<\/em>\u00a0applies;<\/p>\n (c) a claim to which all parties have agreed that the\u00a0Arbitration Act<\/em>\u00a0will apply.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photo by\u00a0Andrew Raun<\/a>. Used under a\u00a0Creative Commons license<\/a>. No changes were made to this image.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The BC Government has passed legislation which will change how society disputes are handled. All societies, members, and non-profit partners should be aware of these changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[45,2],"tags":[44,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societiesact.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![Andrew Raun<\/a>. Used under a\u00a0](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Vancouver_Public_Library_Atrium.jpg\"){kind=link}