B.C. Supreme Court creates COVID-19 telephone conference hearings for non-urgent matters

Law360 Canada (April 20, 2020, 1:45 PM EDT) -- The B.C. Supreme Court has established procedures to allow parties to set up a COVID-19 telephone conference hearing (TCH) for matters that are not urgent or essential (as specified here) and were scheduled for hearing during the suspension of regular operations at the court.

At each TCH, parties will be limited to addressing one disputed issue or to bringing forward issues on which they have consent. The issue(s) must be suitable for determination by telephone and on the basis of one affidavit per party no longer than 10 pages each. TCHs will be limited to one hour in length.

At this time, this process is only available to parties who had a matter scheduled for hearing during the suspension period. Subject to available resources, the court may at a later date expand the availability of the TCH process to matters that were not scheduled during the suspension period, which is currently scheduled to end May 29.

The process begins April 20. More information can be found here.