Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The Court of King's Bench for Saskatchewan considered whether to strike Shawn Pulvermacher's statement of defence to a credit card debt claim brought by Bank of Montreal.
   
• Pulvermacher argued that BMO sued him over a different Mastercard account, disputed the amount owing, and claimed the action was time-barred.
   
• Evidence submitted by BMO, including account statements and a signed credit card application, went unanswered by any evidence from Pulvermacher.
   
• Justice Bergbusch found that the Airmiles Mastercard and the Preferred Rate Mastercard referenced in the pleadings were the same account.
   
• Payments made on the account between June 2022 and March 2023 were held to constitute acknowledgments of the debt under section 11 of The Limitations Act, defeating the limitation defence.
   
• Ultimately, the statement of defence was struck as frivolous without leave to amend, and costs of $1,250 were awarded to BMO.
   

Facts of the case

Bank of Montreal sued Shawn Pulvermacher for a credit card debt owed on a Mastercard Account, alleging that as of January 17, 2024, the unpaid balance was $32,688.53, with interest accruing at 20.99 percent per annum. BMO issued the Statement of Claim on May 29, 2024, and concurrently filed a Notice of Expedited Procedure under Rule 8-3 of The King's Bench Rules. Pulvermacher, who is self-represented, served and filed a Notice of Intent to Defend on July 26, 2024, followed by a Statement of Defence on August 8, 2024. In that defence, Pulvermacher denied the claims, denied ever holding a BMO Preferred Rate Mastercard Account, and instead described an Airmiles Mastercard with over 80,000 Airmiles and a credit limit of no more than $26,000 at an interest rate of 9.6 percent. The defence states that he stopped using the Airmiles Mastercard from early 2021 and stopped using any BMO credit by the end of 2020 or early 2021. He also asserted he had repeatedly requested account statements from BMO and received documents that did not appear legitimate, and he raised sections 5 and 18 of The Limitations Act, SS 2004, c L-16.1, in support of a claim that the action was commenced after the two-year limitation period had expired.

BMO filed a Notice of Application returnable June 10, 2025, seeking an exemption from mandatory mediation, an order striking the Statement of Defence as frivolous or vexatious, and costs. Justice Krogan denied the mediation exemption and adjourned the remainder of the application sine die pending mediation. BMO subsequently filed a new Notice of Application returnable December 9, 2025, renewing its request to strike the Statement of Defence under Rule 7-9(2)(b), supported by the Affidavit of Paul Alexandre Rivard, sworn November 19, 2025.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The application was brought under Rule 7-9(2)(b) of The King's Bench Rules, which permits the Court to strike, amend, or set aside a pleading found to be scandalous, frivolous, or vexatious, among other grounds. Unlike applications under Rule 7-9(2)(a), which concern whether a pleading discloses a reasonable claim or defence and admit no evidence, applications alleging frivolousness or vexatiousness permit the Court to consider evidence beyond the pleadings themselves.

BMO's evidentiary submissions included Pulvermacher's signed 2009 Mastercard application, which stated that the applicant would be responsible for all use of and charges to the account, and the BMO Credit Card Cardholder Agreement, which similarly provided that the cardholder is responsible for the total debt regardless of how it was incurred, and requires the cardholder to report any errors in a monthly statement within 30 days of that statement's date. Account statements from January 2018 to January 2025 were also filed, showing the account transition from a "BMO AIR MILES Mastercard" heading to a "BMO Preferred Rate Mastercard" heading as of the statement dated May 17, 2021, with the same account number and a carried-forward balance throughout. On the limitation issue, BMO relied on section 11 of The Limitations Act, which deems an acknowledgment of a debt, including through part payment, to restart the limitation period, and pointed to ten payments made on the account between June 16, 2022, and March 28, 2023.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Bergbusch addressed each of Pulvermacher's three defences in turn. On the first, the defence that BMO had sued over the wrong account, the Court found the Airmiles Mastercard and the Preferred Rate Mastercard to be one and the same account, given the consistent account number across statements, the direct carry-forward of the balance from the last Airmiles-labelled statement to the first Preferred Rate-labelled statement, and Pulvermacher's continued use of and payments toward the card after the redesignation. This defence was found to be groundless and bound to fail.

On the second defence, disputing the amount owing, the Court distinguished this case from Smith v The Toronto-Dominion Bank, 2023 SKCA 81, where a defence limited to disputing quantum should ordinarily be preserved and referred to the Local Registrar for calculation under Rule 6-58 rather than struck. Here, because BMO's application was framed around frivolousness and vexatiousness rather than a bare failure to disclose a defence, the Court was entitled to weigh the evidence. Pulvermacher offered no evidence contradicting the account statements or substantiating his claim that BMO's disclosures were not legitimate, and the Court accepted BMO's uncontradicted evidence as true. As a result, the denial of the amount owing was found to lack substance as a defence.

On the third defence, the expiry of the limitation period, the Court noted that this type of argument usually arises when a defendant seeks to strike a plaintiff's claim as time-barred, whereas here the roles were reversed: BMO sought to strike a limitations defence as plainly unfounded. Ten part payments made between June 2022 and March 2023 were held to satisfy section 11(3) of The Limitations Act as acknowledgments of the debt, each independently tolling the limitation period. The Court declined to rely on a separate email from Pulvermacher dated August 29, 2024, as an acknowledgment, finding it too ambiguous, but concluded on the strength of the account statements alone that BMO had discharged its burden under section 18 of The Limitations Act to show the claim was not time-barred.

Ruling and overall outcome

Justice Bergbusch concluded that the Statement of Defence was frivolous, in that it was plain and obvious and beyond reasonable doubt that the pleaded defences were groundless and could not succeed, though the Court was not persuaded the defence had been advanced vexatiously or for an ulterior motive. The Statement of Defence was struck without leave to amend, and no referral to the Local Registrar for calculation of the debt was ordered. Bank of Montreal, as the successful party on the application, was awarded costs fixed at $1,250.