Ughhh! I hate working nights.!!!

OK, here's the exact WSIB policy on what they are willing to attach and what they will decline. Clearly, they will turn down any judgments regarding debts to personal creditors such as is the case here. However, they will generally honour government agency attachment certificates, especially ones involving Family Law.

And they make no distinction between NEL and LOE payments, whether lump sum or monthly.

(In retrospect, the issue is confusing because, legislatively, there's nothing preventing the WSIB from being willing to honour personal debt attachments in addition to ones from the CRA, EI, Ontario Works, and even the WSIB themselves. The Courts of Justice Act, Section 143.1 and the Wages Act, Section 7 (1), (5) don't preclude it. It's basically WSIB's internal policy which dictates that they don't want to bother serving as a personal debt collection agency for clients. They probably realize a high percentage of injured workers are going to end up in financial straits and they'd be administratively deluged processing personal attachments if they allowed them.)

http://www.wsib.on.ca/wsib/wopm.nsf/public/180106#Policy

The blogger might want to print the above link out before she sees her lawyer.

WSIA Sections 64 and 65 et al refer to payments to be redirected although there is also mention of payments under Family Law orders being exempt even after being deposited in a bank.

Nevertheless, once the money gets into a bank account, it's a real quagmire trying to prove what came from where. Good luck! That's why I said, it might even be advisable to inquire about a garnishment hearing. I bet the judge hearing the motion wouldn't make her pay more than 25 to 50 bucks a month. ......The finance company definitely won't want to go that route....... But then there's the accumulated interest issue.

I would like to add a couple of comments to DanielDl's excellent response to
your problem.

Under section 64 of "The Workplace Safety and Insurance Act", no benefits shall be assigned, garnished, charged or attached, with one exception, without the permission of the WSIB

.

The exception falls under section 65.
Under section 65 of the Act, it requires the WSIB to honour family support or maintenance orders. If a family support or maintenance order, including a Support Deduction Order, is received by the WSIB, benefits must be diverted as directed by the Family Responsibility Office.

The Act does not distinguish or differentiate between a lump sum payment and monthly payments. Under the NEL (Non-economic loss) provisions, the Board has established a policy regarding the payment of lump sums. If the benefit as established by the Board is under $12,249.65, the amount is paid in a lump sum. If the benefit is over $12,249.65, you may choose to receive your benefit in monthly instalments for the rest of your life, or as a lump sum.

Therefore, all amounts that your husband is receiving from Workers Compensation whether it be in a lump sum or a monthly payment and any disability payments received under the CPP Act are exempt from garnishment.

However, here is where the situation takes a turn and gets interesting. You mentioned in your blog that your bank has frozen your bank account. This part of my blog becomes very important for you to clearly understand. If your bank account ONLY SHOWS DIRECT DEPOSITS from both Workers Compensation and CPP and no other deposit(s) is/are made from any other source, then your bank account is EXEMPT from seizure and the bank must legally UNFREEZE this account. The fact that these amounts are exempt from garnishment at the source does not change their nature or characteristics if they are directly deposited into a bank account. If you husband receives any or all of these payments personally and then deposits these cheques into his bank account, this will TAINT the bank account. Therefore, the bank has the right to freeze the account and it is now subject to seizure. In addition, even if all payments from the two income sources are made by direct deposit, but your husband deposits just $1, into the account, this too will also TAINT the account and subject it to seizure by the creditor.

Based on my comments above, a careful examination of the bank account will determine if the funds on deposit are subject to seizure.

Good Luck and have a GREAT DAY

Please see the addendum. But it may be unnecessary. Still, I bet the new judge will give you a lot easier payment terms than the finance co. will if you get a garnishment hearing.

I know and I totally agree. The only thing I can say in our defense was that we were totally overwhelmed and very young and uninformed. We have taken care of all other debts since then and have never been in any other sort of creditor trouble. It was just extremely poor judgement at the time. We had also inquired about our credit rating in the last several years and found no record of it whatsoever, and I guess we just assumed it was in the past and they had lost interest. Dumb, I realize.

It was filed in small claims court and I am meeting with a lawyer tomorrow in the hopes that we can try and do something about having the freeze removed. At that point, I will follow the lawyers advice on how to proceed about the judgement. The company is talking about dropping the interest it has accrued and making a payment arrangment for the original balance and if that is the case, I will agree tot hose terms, if for no other reason than to prevent this ever happening again.

Thanks very much for the quick response and the link, I appreciate the information.

http://www.isthatlegal.ca/index.php?name=collection2.small_claims_court_law_ontario#Special%20Situations

It's difficult to answer to answer this question because you didn't mention who "they" were who told you or what level of court you were sued in.

The WSIB (or any other government agency for that matter) can file a certificate with the Court and it will act as a judgment that that can be enforced through the sheriff's office as was the case here, In other words, under Sections 138, 139 etc. of the WSIA, they can come after you for any type of overpayment.

But in this case, it was a private finance co. which obtained a writ to seize your bank account; but they don't have the same rights as a government agency. Probably both the NEL and the LOE portions were exempt from garnishee as per the above link. However, once you stick the money in an account, it can be pretty difficult to segregate where it came from in order to shelter it, much less retrieve it. As one trustee in bankruptcy told me, possession is often 9/10"s of the law.

I must add that not to fight the lawsuit and then ignore a judgment which you knew was obtained 10 years ago was more than careless; it was insane.

The Small Claims Court limit was $10K back then and by the time they sued you the amount owing would not been too much more than that. And so I assume they didn't go to the expense of using the Ontario Superior Court Division, Simplified Procedure.

The judgment will include pre and post judgment interest - not at the Court assigned default rate - but probably at the rate of the original loan agreement. Doubtlessly, the finance company was sitting back biding its time until it was opportune to strike. Regrettably, this sort of tragic and sordid thing happens every day. But no one should EVER, EVER simply ignore a judgment filed against them. Those things last a minimum of 20 years or until bankrutcy or death.

With an outstanding judgment against you and then leaving all your assets exposed like a sitting duck in one bank account was not wise to say the least. At minimum, you should have spread them around.

Perhaps if the bank account was joint, then only 50% of it was seizable assuming the judgment was against only one person.

http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/courts/guides/After_Judgement_Guide_to_Getting_Results_EN.pdf

As you can see from the link above [SEE PAGE 13 of 25] as per the references to the exemptions listed in the Ontario Wages Act and the Court of Justice Act, Section 143.1, there exist ambiguities with respect to some kinds of disability awards and insurance payments.

If money was seized, then the sheriff would pay it into the Court and the creditor would only have acess to it after 30 days. In the meantime, perhaps you could submit a Form 20Q (Request for Garnishment Hearing) - which either the creditor or debtor can ask for. If granted, the Court may well grant you much gentler or modified payment terms, especially if some of the deposits seized were exempt or came from a joint account or your personal circumstances are difficult.

Finally, the advice of a paralegal would not be very expensive, and that of the Court clerks are always free.

Hi!
This week my husband and I found out our bank acct had been frozen due to a court order stemming from a credit issue over a used car from 10 years ago. The finance company who made the loan to us, sued us after we stopped payments when the car engine literally blew up and the dealership and warranty company would not take our calls or respond to our problem in any way. They took us to court, and the judge unfortunately found against us. This was 10 years ago. My husband then was diagnosed with severe mental illness and is currently on WSIB and CPP disability. They are telling us that although his regular LOE payments from WSIB and his CPP disability payments are exempt, that a $9000.00 NEL settlement he recieved several months ago is NOT exempt. I can find no information on creditors and NEL settlements in Ontario and I have a feeling they are bluffing to try and get us to pay. I should mention they are trying to take $27,000.00 from us, for a car that originally cost 11,000.00, for which we had the use of for 4 months and paid for for over a year.
We have three kids and this account has everything for our day to day liing costs as well as my husbands prescriptions (including anti-psychotics) and we have access to nothing. I hope someone can tell me as I am getting desperate. I can't even get a lawyer, because I have no access to funds to pay them.