{"id":450,"date":"2016-07-27T19:26:34","date_gmt":"2016-07-27T23:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=450"},"modified":"2016-11-30T10:42:26","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T14:42:26","slug":"ontario-acknowledgments-of-liability-must-be-clear-unequivocal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=450","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: Acknowledgments of liability must be clear, unequivocal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Section 13(1) of the Limitations Act<\/a>\u00a0applies to acknowledgments of liability:<\/p>\n

\n

Acknowledgments<\/h4>\n

<\/a><\/a>13. (1)<\/span><\/a><\/b> If a person acknowledges liability in respect of a claim for payment of a liquidated sum, the recovery of personal property, the enforcement of a charge on personal property or relief from enforcement of a charge on personal property, the act or omission on which the claim is based shall be deemed to have taken place on the day on which the acknowledgment was made.\u00a0 2002, c.\u00a024, Sched.\u00a0B, s.\u00a013 (1).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What type of acknowledgement will engage this provision? One that is clear and unequivocal. \u00a0A mere proposal for a settlement plan that doesn’t acknowledge an amount owing won’t suffice. \u00a0The Court of Appeal decision in 1702108 Ontario Inc. v. 328331 Canada Inc.<\/a><\/em> reiterates the principle:<\/p>\n

\n

[<\/a>5]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The language of the statute sets out the applicable test: s. 13(1)<\/a> is engaged when a person acknowledges liability in respect of a claim for payment of a liquidated amount. In Middleton v. Aboutown Enterprises Inc.<\/em>, 2009 ONCA 466 (CanLII)<\/span><\/a><\/span>, this court held, at para. 1, that s. 13(1)<\/a> requires a \u201cclear and unequivocal acknowledgement of the debt claimed.\u201d In that case, the court upheld the motion judge\u2019s finding that a mere offer to settle a claim, without acknowledging that any amount remained owing, did not amount to an acknowledgement of liability for the purposes of s. 13(1)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[<\/a>6]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 In the present case, Mr. Durrani\u2019s March 14 email did not acknowledge liability for the liquidated sum of $296,700 demanded by the appellant in its March 14 correspondence. At most, the respondent\u2019s March 14 email proposed negotiating a settlement plan, without acknowledging that any amount remained owing. When the appellant subsequently pressed for an acknowledgement of liability for the liquidated sum, the respondent refused to give one. Accordingly, we see no basis to interfere with the motion judge\u2019s conclusion that the March 14, 2013 email was not an acknowledgement. We would not give effect to this ground of appeal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Section 13(1) of the Limitations Act\u00a0applies to acknowledgments of liability: Acknowledgments 13. (1) If a person acknowledges liability in respect of a claim for payment of a liquidated sum, the recovery of personal property, the enforcement of a charge on personal property or relief from enforcement of a charge on personal property, the act or … Continue reading Ontario: Acknowledgments of liability must be clear, unequivocal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[246,247,197,245,43],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-acknowledgments","tag-clear-unequivocal","tag-ontario-act-s-13","tag-ontario-act-s-131","tag-ontario-court-of-appeal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}