This chapter briefly discusses the history and current state of the law of liens. It starts with an outline of liens at common law, then proceeds to discuss the key features of the Forestry Workers Lien for Wages Act.[35]
A. What is a lien?
The common law lien dates back to at least the 18th century.[36] At its core, such a lien consists merely of a right for a person to retain property already in his or her possession until a demand of some sort, usually for payment, has been satisfied.[37] Typically it is given to people who have preserved or improved the value of that property.[38] The common law provides only this right to retain – the lien holder cannot sell the property to satisfy any debt without first obtaining a court order.[39] Further, the lien is lost if the lien holder gives up possession of the property.[40] The common law lien is thus a relatively narrow, restrictive method for ensuring the payment of a debt. [41]
From the 19th century onwards, however, legislatures around the common law world expanded the scope and content of lien rights via statute. This was particularly common in North America, where a number of liens that bear very little resemblance to a classic common law lien were developed.
One of these new types of statutory lien was a lien for workers engaged in various primary industries such as agriculture, forestry and mining.[42] They were developed as an early form of worker protection, in industries where employers were short of cash and workers could not be sure of being paid their wages when work was completed.[43] This paper is concerned primarily with forestry liens, but the other forms of liens developed at this time provide useful points of comparison, both in terms of the original policy intent and in terms of how they have been reformed (or not reformed) over the past century, and are therefore discussed below.
B. The Forestry Workers Lien for Wages Act
The Forestry Workers Lien for Wages Act (“the Act”) is a provincial statute designed to protect the financial interests of those engaged in logging work. It does this by giving logging workers a lien over timber they have worked on to secure monies that are owing to them. It also sets out processes for the seizure and sale of timber and for dispute resolution by a court if necessary.
The Act is largely unchanged from its passage in 1891 as the Woodsmen’s Lien for Wages Act.[44] This causes significant problems in the implementation of the Act, as its terminology and processes do not mesh well with the modern logging industry or the modern legal system. Perhaps due to its obsolete drafting, the Act is rarely used, with most of the activity in recent years arising out of one insolvency event.[45]
The key features of the Act are discussed below.
1. Persons entitled to a lien
Any person performing “labour” on logs or timber is entitled to a lien on those logs or timber for the amount owing for such “labour”.[46] “Labour” is broadly defined to mean “cutting, skidding, felling, hauling, scaling, banking, driving, running, rafting or booming any logs or timber and includes any work done by cooks, blacksmiths, artisans and others usually employed in connection therewith”.[47] Contractors who have “cut, removed, taken out or driven logs or timber” are also entitled to a lien.[48]
2. Property that is subject to a lien
Liens can be placed on “logs, cordwood, timber, cedar posts, telegraph poles, railroad ties, tan bark, pulpwood, shingle bolts, and staves….”[49] Recent court decisions have clarified that woodchips are also included in the type of wood products upon which liens can be placed.[50] The Act specifically states that sale of the logs or lumber does not extinguish a lien.[51] Once wood has been processed at a mill, however (into lumber, veneer or paper, for example), it is no longer able to be liened, and any existing liens are lost.[52]
3. Filing requirements
Liens are claimed by filling out the form required by the Act and verifying its details in an accompanying affidavit.[53] The form and affidavit are then filed at the Superior Court of Justice for the area in which the work for which a lien is being claimed was carried out.[54] The time allowed for filing depends on exactly when work was carried out, with a firm deadline of filing by the 30th of the next April applying to work done in the autumn or winter, and a 30 day deadline after work is completed applying to spring or summer.[55]
4. Enforcement
The Act sets out a comprehensive though confusing mechanism for enforcing the lien.[56] Depending on the monetary value, enforcement actions can be taken in either the Small Claims Court or Superior Court of Justice.[57] However, even if the claim is filed in the Superior Court of Justice, the bulk of the process is required to follow, as closely as possible, the procedures of the Small Claims Court.[58]
Of particular note in the enforcement process is the ability to apply to the Court for a sheriff or bailiff to seize the logs or timber where the claimant is in danger of losing his or her claim.[59] Regardless of whether the logs have been seized or not, ultimately they can be sold to pay the money owing once a lien claim is proved in court.[60]
5. Priority
The Act gives extremely high priority to the liens it creates. It states that “the lien has precedence over all other claims or liens thereon”, except for Crown liens for stumpage fees and the like and a very narrow priority given to the owners of timber slides or booms used in the transport of logs (this method of log transport is no longer used).[61]
C. Problems with the Act
As noted above, the Act is outdated and has had very little attention paid to it for a century. Since expanding lien rights to contractors in 1901 and a cosmetic restructure in 1907, almost nothing has been changed. This has led to an Act that is both legally and practically obsolete. It suffers from confusing and outdated processes for proving and enforcing liens, and has ineffective costs provisions. The biggest problem with the Act, however, is that it rests on assumptions about the logging industry that have not been true for decades.
As was discussed in more detail in Chapter II, when the