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Homeless Victoria woman ordered to pay back boss $4K in loans that brought her to city

Court had zero sympathy despite series of catastrophes
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A woman who suffered a series of catastrophes after moving to Victoria got zero sympathy from an adjudicator in a civil case.

Now she has to pay back $4,000 despite having become homeless.

A Victoria employer took the woman to the Civil Resolution Tribunal, saying he had loaned her the money to enable her to move here from the mainland to work for him, but that she refused to pay him back.

The woman in the case responded that she disputes the amount claimed, and that the employer did not provide her with the kind of salary that he had promised before she moved to Victoria.

The woman also claimed in the CRT filing that she became homeless while working for him and that she was also injured on the job.

According to the CRT decision, it is the employer who filed the claim who must prove it on a balance of probabilities.

The employer, according to the claim, gave her a series of loans, ranging from $500 to $2,625 to help her make the move to Victoria. He emailed the woman with a total of the loans and said she could pay it back by taking $200 off of each paycheque.

In response, the woman at that time didn’t dispute the amount. In a later email, she asked for an additional $300 loan. The total amount owed, according to the CRT, was actually $4,654.68, but the woman had paid back a few hundred dollars after that.

That’s when the repayments stopped. The woman also disputed to the CRT the amount listed by the employer, despite not disagreeing with the number previously.

“In her submissions, (the respondent) advances a number of reasons for why she has not made payments,” says the CRT decision. “She alleges (the employer) did not provide her with a promised salary, and also says she became homeless while working for (him), and that she was injured while at work. I infer she is arguing that she does not have the resources to repay the loan. However, an inability to pay does not mean (the man) is not entitled to an order now for a proven debt claim … (The woman) did not file a counterclaim about any contract or her salary, and did not specify what damages she suffered as a result of (the employer’s) alleged breach of contract. Similarly, she did not file a counterclaim about personal injury, or establish how it is related to the loan. So, I do not make any findings bout that allegation. None of her further submissions provide any reason that she should not be responsible to repay the personal loans, so they do not impact my decision.”

By the beginning of May, the woman must now repay the loans with interest.

READ MORE: Victoria company sues woman after mistakenly putting birthday sign on her lawn

Do you have a story tip? Email: chris.campbell@blackpress.ca.

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Chris Campbell

About the Author: Chris Campbell

I joined the Victoria News hub as an editor in 2023, bringing with me over 30 years of experience from community newspapers in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley
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