Indigent

A poor person; not penniless but in need and who has no financial support from any other.

In Tan v Yukon 2005 YKSC 19, the Yukon Supreme Court, Sa Tan applied to be exempted from paying Court fees related to filing a claim, an exemption which the Court rules extend to persons as follows:

"If the court, on summary application before or after the commencement of a proceeding, finds that a person is indigent, the court may order that no fee is payable to the Crown by the person to commence, defend or continue the whole or any part of the proceeding unless the court considers that the claim or defence discloses no reasonable claim or defence as the case may be, is scandalous, frivolous or vexatious, or  is otherwise an abuse of the process of the court."

Justice Gower rejected the plaintiff Tan's application for indigency status as follows, adopting some wording from other cases:

“Indigent is not further defined in the Rules of Court, but its meaning has been considered in a number of cases. Generally, it means a person who is not penniless, but who has such few resources that they may be considered needy ... possessed of some means but such scanty means that he is needy or poor.

" The purpose of granting indigency status is to ensure that those with arguable cases, but inadequate finances, have access to justice. In Trautmann v. Baker,  1997 BCJ 452 (C.A): 'As I see it, the underlying rationale for the granting of indigent status is to ensure that no litigant will be denied access to the courts by reason of impecuniosity. … As I observed earlier, the concern of the court must be that no arguably meritorious case should be prevented from getting a hearing merely because a person is without the financial resources to carry on with the litigation.

"While the courts should not be overly rigorous in approaching such an application, it must be recognized that giving a litigant indigent status may be affording an unfair advantage to that litigant vis-à-vis the other party.

"As for Mr. Tan’s claim for indigency, I note that his affidavit material discloses a monthly income of $800.00, of which he nets approximately $750.00 after taxes. His stated monthly expenses equal his gross monthly income. He claims to have no assets and $2,000.00 in loans outstanding to friends. He has also affirmed that he does not have the ability to borrow money for the filing fees under the Rules of Court. Those fees would be $140.00 per claim. Thus, although Mr. Tan may not be totally destitute, he does appear to be a person of “such scanty means that he is needy or poor” and that the total of $280.00 in filing fees for both claims (indeed, even the fee for one claim) would effectively deny him access to justice."

Research and Further Reading:

Tan v Yukon 2007 YKSC 19, published at canlii.org/en/yk/yksc/doc/2005/2005yksc19/2005yksc19.html