Law - what is a claim?

As readers may know, the Small Claims Tribunal has a $10,000 limit on claims, which limit is increased to $20,000 if both parties agree.

The issue to be examined here is what is a claim? Every breach of contract can be considered a claim. Of course, one cannot divide a single claim into smaller claims in order to come within the Tribunal limit. However, every allegation of breach of contract can be considered a separate claim.

For example, if you bought a computer package consisting of CPU unit, monitor, printer, every instance where the package did not conform to the contract could be considered a claim. For example, if the processor and the graphics card were different from what was promised, these could be considered 2 separate claims.

The above suggestion would of course only be useful if you entered into an expensive contract worth much more than $10,000, so that your claims if not carefully drafted may well exceed the Tribunal limit.