Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Dispute centered on unpaid invoices under a time-and-materials residential renovation contract.

• Contractor's claim of $225,598.09 lacked supporting documentation such as timesheets and detailed invoices.

• Trial judge accepted a vague account statement as proof, but the appeal court found this insufficient under civil evidentiary standards.

• Defendants' counterclaim for corrective work partly failed due to absence of invoices, though estimates were admitted without full probative weight.

• Québec Court of Appeal reduced the amount owed from $151,549.16 to $80,125.25 based on admitted value of completed work.

• Partial victory for the homeowners (Cataford and Robert), who succeeded in significantly reducing the award against them.

Facts and outcome of the case

David Cataford and Geneviève Robert entered into a time-and-materials contract with Construction Albert Jean ltée to renovate a residence they purchased on September 28, 2018. The contractor began work on October 22, 2018, with a projected completion date of December 7. However, due to repeated issues and deficiencies, the homeowners expressed their intention to terminate the contract on December 4. The contractor left the site on December 21, with the work only 90–95% complete and unresolved deficiencies remaining.

Construction Albert Jean ltée sued for a total of $225,598.09 based on four invoices, of which the homeowners had paid $67,845.36. In their defense, Cataford and Robert filed a counterclaim arguing the contractor's work was deficient and overbilled. They relied on an expert report to assert the real value of the work done was $147,970.61, with $40,080.25 in deductions for deficiencies.

The trial judge accepted the contractor's full claim, finding it had proven its demand and concluding the homeowners waived their right to contest at least the first invoice by paying it without objection. The judge also found the contractor had provided sufficient documentation and accepted the contractor’s general statement of account as evidence. The homeowners were awarded only $6,563.57 for deficiencies not yet corrected, while their claim for already-completed corrective work was dismissed due to lack of invoices and reliance on estimates alone.

On appeal, the Québec Court of Appeal disagreed with the lower court’s conclusion that the contractor had proven its entire claim. It held that the vague statement of account lacked probative value and that budgets presented were not tied to actual work done. The appeal court emphasized that, under a time-and-materials contract, the burden was on the contractor to justify its charges with detailed documentation. Because Construction Albert Jean ltée failed to do so, the court ruled that only $80,125.25 was proven and payable—an amount that the defendants had effectively admitted.

The court upheld the trial judge’s dismissal of the part of the counterclaim relating to already-completed corrective work. It found that the trial judge did not err in finding that estimates, in this context, lacked sufficient probative value when actual costs could have been submitted. While the exclusion of invoices during trial was upheld due to procedural delay and lack of prior disclosure, the core reason the claims were dismissed was the weakness of the evidence, not a question of admissibility.

The Québec Court of Appeal modified the trial judgment accordingly, significantly reducing the financial burden on the homeowners. As a result, David Cataford and Geneviève Robert achieved a partial victory, with the appeal court reducing the contractor’s award by nearly half and correcting the trial judge’s assessment of the evidence. The judgment clarified that even in the absence of formal objection, evidence must meet appropriate standards of probative value to support a claim in civil construction disputes.