A Prince George provincial court judge has ordered a local homeowner to pay out more than $14,000 to a man who carried out renovations on his house after finding a counterclaim he had filed was entirely without merit.
In 2012 Kirk Niedermayer hired a then-friend, Travis Molison, to replace the windows and siding and repair a rotten wall on his 1100-block Sterling Drive home for $29,000, with $14,000 going towards materials and $15,000 to labour.
An account was opened at a local building supply store to cover the cost of the materials and, when the project passed inspection, Niedermayer's bank released the funds to pay Molison for the work he and his crew performed.
However, Niedermayer did not pay Molison anything and, when Molision filed a claim in small claims court, Niedermeyer responded with a counterclaim for more than $46,000 that judge Shannon Keyes found had "no reasonable basis for success."
If anything, Niedermayer's counterclaim served to delay bringing the matter to trial for about a year and appeared to be part of a an ulterior motive, Keyes indicated.
Because Niedermayer's counterclaim was for more than $25,000, it would have had to have been heard in B.C. Supreme Court. Molison, who was at one point so poverty stricken because of Niedermayer's refusal to pay that he and his family were forced to go on social assistance, likely could not have afforded to pay for a lawyer to represent him at that level.
"A suspicious person might infer that this unfounded, very large counterclaim was filed for no other purpose than to intimidate Mr. Molison into giving up his claim altogether rather than face a Supreme Court trial without a lawyer," Keyes said.
However, Niedermayer never followed through on taking it to Supreme Court, despite adjourning a settlement conference with the intent to do so.
But he did use it as the basis for his defence against Molison's allegations.
In the end, Keyes ordered Niedermayer to pay Molison $11,559 for labour after Molison agreed there should be some deductions from the $15,000 related to the work performed as well as for materials he purchased for another project on the account with Niedermayer's permission.
On top of that, Niedermayer must pay a further $2,500 to Molison, representing a 10 per cent penalty for the amount he could have won in small claims court had his counterclaim been successful.
Had Niedermayer actually taken his counterclaim to Supreme Court and lost, he would have had to pay a $4,638 penalty.
But because awards in small claims court are capped at $25,000, "I am of the view that the maximum penalty I can properly impose is $2,500," Keyes said.
The full ruling can be found under this story in the section called Related to the Story.
