What I mean is that Law Suits like this are treated as follows:
1. Mediation: The two parties get together and discuss the legitimacy of the case and seek a resolution.
2. Arbitration: Both parties must select a third party to give their opinion on the case.
3. Pretrial Judge: An informal court appearance where a Pretrial judge (Can be a justice of the peace or something at that level) Where a ruling is made. The 2 parties have the option of rejecting the ruling and proceeding to civil court. However if the Court Judge has the same ruling as the Pretrial judge, the party that rejected the Pretrial judges ruling is penalized.
4. Civil Court
Now keep in mind steps 1-3 are paid for by the 2 parties and not the tax payers.
The other thing they have done is apportion blame. How this works is, say we use the example of someone slipping on a patch of ice on your property and suing you. Well the court actually determines the % of fault of the plaintiff and the defendant and apportions the responsibility. How this works is, say you were the plaintiff and they ruled in your favor, but determined you were about 25% at fault. You would only get 75% of your settlement.
These steps have dramatically reduced court wait time, costs, and frivolous law suits. Now if Canada can only fix up it's pathetic criminal system as well.