Part 3 of the Notice of Civil Claim requires the plaintiff to summarize the legal basis of their case. Each case is different and so there is no simple answer for what should be included here. However, there are many resources that can help you find the information you’re looking for.
According to the BC Supreme Court Online Help guide’s section on “The Law” the legal basis of your claim may include:
- Case law
- BC Supreme Court Rules
- BC legislation
General sources of information
Before looking for case law, BC Supreme Court Rules, or BC legislation, you may want to look at more general sources for information. Sometimes these more general sources of information may provide relevant case law, BC legislation, or BC Supreme Court Rules. For example, a legal encyclopedia such as Halsbury’s Laws of Canada or a textbook on the applicable area of law. These resources may also provide you with useful legal keywords that may help you find case law, BC legislation, or BC Supreme Court Rules.
Case law
To find case law that may be used for legal basis, search a free legal database such as CanLII or the subscription databases Westlaw and LexisAdvance Quicklaw available through Courthouse Libraries. Use keywords related to your circumstances to find cases similar to yours. It may take some time to find a case related to your own, and require changing your keywords for similar words, or more specific keywords. There is a guide on the Courthouse Library website called Canlii Tips and Tricks to help with effective searching.
BC legislation
To find BC legislation that may be used for your legal basis, you may have to look in a variety of sources. If you know of a specific law that may affect your case, you could look through that law. Current versions of BC legislation are available on BC Laws. If you do not know of any laws that may affect your case, you may have to look at more general sources found through the library catalogue. If your case law search returns a case similar to yours, it may also reference BC legislation that is relevant to your circumstances, which you can then look up on BC Laws.
BC Supreme Court Rules
To find BC Supreme Court Rules that may be used for a legal basis, you can look online or in print. To look online, go to the rules hosted on the BC Laws website. To look through the print version, you can use the most recent edition of the British Columbia Annual Practice within our collection. Similar to BC legislation, if you have found cases similar to yours, it may reference BC Supreme Court Rules relevant to your circumstances.
Samples of completed Notices of Civil Claim
There are a couple of places to access filed pleadings in actual cases decided in British Columbia courts. This can be helpful to provide ideas or guidance to write your own legal basis.
The first is through the module called “Pleadings, Motions and Facta” found on LexisAdvance Quicklaw and available on library computers in all Courthouse Library locations. It contains filed Notices of Civil Claim from real cases and can be searched with keywords in the same manner as Canlii.
Another source is Court Services Online which provides electronic access to court files in registries across the province. There is a fee for accessing documents on Court Services Online, but it can be searched and accessed free of charge on the library’s public computers. Note that CSO must be searched with the court file number or names of parties involved; there is no ability to keyword search.
- BC Supreme Court Online Help guide – Justice Education Society
- BC Laws – BC Government
- BC Supreme Court Civil Rules – BC Government
- Court Services Online – BC Government
- Lexis Advance Quicklaw – onsite at Courthouse Libraries
- Westlaw – onsite at Courthouse Libraries
- Professional Legal Training Course materials – Civil – Law Society of British Columbia