1. Fill out a Plaintiff’s Claim Form

The forms that you need for Small Claims Court are on the Ontario Court Forms website.

The Guide to Making a Claim has information to help you complete the Plaintiff’s Claim Form 7A.

You’re the plaintiff. A plaintiff is the person who is suing.

The employer you’re suing is the defendant. A defendant is the person who is being sued.

Follow the instructions in the guide carefully to make sure you complete the form correctly.

Giving details about you and your employer

On page 1 of the claim form, you give:

• your name and contact information, as the plaintiff
• the employer’s name and contact information, as the defendant

If you win, you can only collect from the defendant whose name you give. It’s important to have the right name for the employer. Check pay stubs or letters for the employer’s name.

If the employer has registered a business name with the Government of Ontario, you may be able to find it through ServiceOntario’s business name search.

You might want to name both the business and the person who runs the business as defendants. You might be able to get the court to make an order against both. For example, if you worked for a business that uses the name XY Moving and the business is run by Joe Bossman, you could name both XY Moving and Joe Bossman as defendants.

Giving the reasons for your claim

The next information you enter on the claim form is why you’re suing and for how much. You need to include information about:

• when you were hired
• the terms of your employment, for example, your job title, hours, and rate of pay
• when you stopped working for the employer and why
• what you’re claiming and why

To show what the employer owes you, include details like:

• the dates that you worked
• what you were paid
• how much you should have been paid

Give details if the employer did something that was against your human rights at work or fired you for a reason that goes against your human rights.

Entering the amount of your claim

Finally, you have to say how much you’re claiming. Remember that the maximum amount the Small Claims Court can order a defendant to pay is $35,000.

Your claim can include money for:

• wages your employer owes you, for example, if you were paid less than minimum wage or not paid for overtime
• notice of termination if your employer fired you or forced you to leave your job
• costs that you had because you were fired, for example, expenses of looking for another job
• harm that you suffered because your employer humiliated you or did something that went against your human rights