Are self represented litigants entitled to the same costs as those of counsel?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Geremia v. Harb, 2008 CanLII 19764 (ON SC):

[74] “. . . self represented litigants, be they legally trained or not, are not entitled to costs calculated on the same basis as those of the litigant who retains counsel . . . all litigants suffer a loss of time through their involvement in the legal process. The self-represented litigant should not recover costs for the time and effort that any litigant would have to devote to the case. Costs should only be awarded to those lay litigants who can demonstrate that they devoted time and effort to do the work ordinarily done by a lawyer retained to conduct the litigation, and that as a result, they incurred an opportunity cost by foregoing remunerative activity”: see Fong v. Chan, supra, at paragraph [26] (emphasis added).

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