Ontario. Court of Common Pleas

• Court of Common Pleas

• Canada (Province). Court of Common Pleas

The Court of Common Pleas was established in 1849 in order to assume part of the caseload of the Court of Queen's Bench. With the creation of the Court of Common Pleas, an additional superior court judge was added to the bench, bringing the total number of judges to six. Each court, therefore, had one Chief Justice and two puisne, or "junior", judges. Although the jurisdiction of the Court of Common Pleas was equal to that of the Court of Queen's Bench, many lawyers continued to prefer the judges of the latter court and the goal of relieving some of the workload pressures on that court was not being met. To solve this problem, a bill was passed by the legislature in 1853 requiring that writs issued within the jurisdiction of these two courts be issued in alternate batches of twelve, ie. twelve to the Courts of Queen's Bench followed by twelve to the Court of Common Pleas. In this way the caseload for the two courts was evened out.

In 1881, the Ontario Judicature Act was passed which merged together the Courts of Appeal, Queen's Bench, Chancery, and Common Pleas to form the Supreme Court of Judicature for Ontario. This new Supreme Court was in turn, organized into two branches: the Court of Appeal, and the High Court of Justice. At this time, the functions of the Courts of Common Pleas were transferred to the Common Pleas Division of the High Court of Justice.

The Court of Common Pleas had jurisdiction over all matters of actions, causes and suits, both criminal and civil, within Ontario. Beginning in 1855, the Court was given responsibility over the custody of infants. In 1871 the jurisdiction of the Court was further expanded to include responsibility for trying election cases.

An Act to make further provision for the Administration of Justice, by the establishment of an additional Superior Court of Common Law and also a Court of Error and Appeal, in Upper Canada, and for other purposes, Statutes of the Province of Canada 1849, Chap. 63

RAD: Rules for Archival Description, 2nd edn (2008)

2026-11-16: migrated to AtoM

Banks, Margaret A. Evolution of the Ontario Courts 1788-1981 (1983)

Zuber, The Honourable T.G. Report of the Ontario Courts Inquiry (1987)

Canadian Almanac, 1849-1881

Canadiana Name Authorities, 1996-12-24

Archivist(s):
R. Anger