Digest: Baker v Hall, 2018 SKPC 33

• Date: April 18, 2018

Reported as: 2018 SKPC 33

Docket Number: 624/17 , PC17115

Court: Provincial Court

Date: 2018-04-18

Judges:

• Demong

Subjects:

• Motor Vehicles � Ownership

Digest: The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant seeking indemnification for past payments made by the plaintiff on a vehicle and for all payments into the future or, alternatively, an order that the vehicle be sold and the proceeds applied to the remaining balance. The plaintiff had entered into a credit financing agreement in May 2015 to assist the defendant with the purchase of a used Jeep. The plaintiff had paid $143 bi-weekly since 2015 and still owed $11,600. The plaintiff claimed that he had an ownership interest in the vehicle and was allowing the defendant to use it, or that his payments were conditional on an agreement that the defendant would have custody of their daughter and responsibility for the financial cost of her care. After a brief relationship, the parties had a daughter born in 2003 and thereafter the defendant had exclusive custody of her until April 2017, when she moved in with the plaintiff. As a result of this change in the daughter�s residence, the plaintiff asserted that he should have no further obligation with respect to the credit agreement he signed. The defendant submitted that she was the registered owner of the vehicle and had paid for fuel and maintenance. The plaintiff decided to enter into the financing agreement and make payments on the vehicle as a gift to her. There were no conditions attached to the gift at the time that the vehicle was purchased and the plaintiff was now trying to attach conditions to the gift retroactively.
HELD: The action was dismissed. The court preferred the evidence of the defendant. Her version of how the plaintiff had given the vehicle to her as a gift...