CANADA
GlobalPost
WINNIPEG – A Manitoba judge says extra fees charged to residential school survivors by companies that fill out forms were in many cases illegal and in some cases unconscionable.
The ruling by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Perry Schulman affects more than 30 lawyers and agencies across Canada and will result in some survivors reimbursed for fees they paid.
“Given my view of the correct legal characterization of agreements between form-fillers and … claimants, I have concluded that those agreements are presumptively void and unenforceable,” Schulman wrote in his decision released last week.
“Apart from considerations of illegality, agreements to pay form fillers in circumstances of unequal bargaining power and where an improvident deal was made, such as the two examples in the record before this court, are unconscionable.”
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