Can a contract between two individuals providing for reimbursement in sexual services be legal? This is one of the questions that the Small Claims Court must answer, in a case where a 77-year-old client is suing an escort to whom he lent $20,000 to help him get out of his situation.
“It’s a very touching story, full of sadness on both sides,” announced judge Sophie Lapierre, opening the trial at the Sherbrooke courthouse on November 9. “But we will frame what is important at the legal level: was there a loan? Is it valid? And was there a receipt? », summarized the magistrate.
The case comes months after a Nova Scotia Small Claims Court judge ordered a man to pay a sex worker $1,800 for sexual services he had not paid for. This decision is considered a first in the Canadian justice system.
In this new case, the plaintiff is Serge*a man who had dozens of paid relationships with a sex worker who worked at the time under the name “Leonie”.
Serge claims to be the victim of “psychological and financial abuse” after having lent more than $20,000 to the woman, whom he says had become her “friend-client” over the course of their meetings.
He is demanding $15,000 from her, the maximum allowed in Small Claims Court, for amounts she has not reimbursed him.
A “dream night clause”
Serge began lending money to the woman when she informed him of her intention to leave the world of prostitution. After taking out a car loan and a personal loan in the woman’s name, Serge made her sign various acknowledgments of debt, formal contracts providing for a repayment of $487 per month. “I had the contract prepared by a notary so that it complies with the Civil Code,” Serge affirmed in court.
Serge claims that their relationship was no longer one of a client-escort nature from that moment on: “It was over, we were friends,” he maintained, admitting however that he had “six or seven truly intimate encounters like fuck friends », during which he deducted $200 from the amount the defendant owed him.
An annex to an acknowledgment of debt contract, filed as evidence by the woman, provided for reimbursements “in kind” at the rate of $200 per appointment. “There will be a minimum of 2 meetings and a maximum of 4 per month,” specifies the document, which also specifies the terms of a “dream night clause”, by which the woman agreed to spend one night per year with Serge.
“Void, absolute nullity”
In her defense, the woman argued that this annex made the contract “null, absolutely null”, since it concerns advances on sexual services which are of a criminal nature, prohibited by law or contrary to the law. public order.
During the trial, Judge Lapierre asked Serge several times if he had agreed with the woman to agree on other forms of reimbursement “in kind”.
It was I who decided, on my own, to deduct her debt, because I knew that she was not working and that she did not have a job and that she was in financial difficulty.
Serge
When the woman ended up in a shelter for abused women due to personal problems that had nothing to do with her relationship with Serge, the latter ended up signing a release, freeing her from the debt. He maintains that he did it because a friend of Léonie told him that the latter would commit suicide if he did not erase the debt, which the woman firmly denies.
“I was stabbed, duped,” Serge pleaded before the judge. It was me who took her out of her environment. I paid for his electricity. I have always been in good faith. »
Serge had a representative from DIRA-Estrie, an organization that helps seniors who are victims of abuse, testify and say that the fear that the woman could commit suicide caused her to experience great distress.
Issues related to consent
The Concertation of Struggles Against Sexual Exploitation (CLES), an organization that opposes the legalization of prostitution, has difficulty explaining how such a contract can end up in court. “It’s as if she [l’escorte] had no right to get out of this relationship. It’s the same type of control as in a case of domestic violence,” comments Jenny-Laure Sully, spokesperson for the organization.
Without commenting directly on the cause, the Stella organization, which represents sex workers, affirms that it is not uncommon for women in the same situation to be “cornered” by clients who threaten to use the courts to force them to provide sexual services.
“Sex work remains entirely criminalized in Canada,” emphasizes Executive Director Sandra Wesley. “It creates a playing field large enough to harm us, for example by threatening to report us to the owner of our home, to our parents” or to any other person in a position of authority, she laments.
*We are not naming the woman involved in this case because she is the mother of a minor child. We have also chosen to withhold the man’s name for the sake of fairness.