Legal Research

Enforcing Plain Language

By John Gregory

An Ontario private member’s bill, the Cell Phone, Smart Phone and Wireless Technology Transparency Act, 2010, requires among other things that future performance contracts (a term defined in the Consumer Protection Act), “shall be expressed in plain language that is clear and concise.” (s. 3(1))

Are there judicially recognized standards of plain language that would allow this provision to be enforced, and that would allow someone drafting such a contract to know that he or she had met the standards? I know that there are books and articles around about plain language, but does something have force of law?

The bill goes on to list eleven specific things that a supplier of the applicable service has to put in the contract, along with the requirements of the Consumer Protection Act and its regulations – so the demand that the contract be ‘concise’ may be a bit difficult to achieve. Are there judicial standards on concision?

The bill seems influenced by Quebec’s recent changes to its consumer protection legislation, adopted last year as Bill 60, and in force as of June 2010. That bill called the services to which it applied its similar rules ‘Contracts Involving Sequential Performance for Services Provided at a Distance’, perhaps (as the commentary cited here suggests) to avoid infringing on federal legislative competence over telecommunications.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 19, 2010 (boomark / email).