Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Responsibility for a fraud involving four forged government cheques deposited via mobile banking, using the plaintiff’s account and credentials.
• Causation and fault apportionment arising from the plaintiff having shared her banking “identifiers” with the defendant and allowing use of her phone to deposit the cheques.
• Application of the three-year extinctive prescription under article 2925 CCQ, rendering claims tied to the first three cheques time-barred.
• Assessment of liability for the fourth cheque only, including whether both parties’ conduct contributed to the loss and justified a 50/50 allocation of responsibility.
• Proof of the plaintiff’s reimbursement to the Bank of Montreal and the resulting recoverable loss against the defendant.
• Determination of monetary relief in small claims, including partial allowance of the action, legal interest, additional indemnity under article 1619 CCQ, and court costs.

Factual background and relationship between the parties

The dispute arises before the Civil Division, Small Claims (Division des petites créances) of the Court of Québec, District of Montréal, in Canada. The plaintiff, Keslande Victoria Innocent, sues the defendant, Rubensy Daniel Philemy, for damages based on fraud. She alleges that he was involved in a scheme using her bank account and mobile banking to process forged government cheques and that this resulted in a significant negative balance in her account with the Bank of Montreal, which she later repaid. The claim is framed as a civil liability action in small claims, with allegations of fraudulent conduct tied to four counterfeit government cheques.

Alleged fraudulent scheme and use of forged cheques

According to the plaintiff, the defendant endorsed and deposited four forged government cheques to her bank account using mobile deposits. The cheques, grouped together as exhibit P-1, were not genuine government instruments. The plaintiff maintains that after these deposits, the defendant used the funds and left her account overdrawn in the amount of 23,574.82 CAD, which she says she reimbursed to the Bank of Montreal. The total face value of the four cheques came to 26,493.15 CAD. The first cheque, dated 21 October 2020, was for 8,000.25 CAD; the second, dated 2 November 2020, was for 7,230.40 CAD; the third, dated 9 November 2020, was for 6,305.20 CAD; and the fourth, dated 29 December 2020, was for 4,957.25 CAD. The defendant denies liability and asserts that it was the plaintiff herself who arranged to have the fraudulent cheques made, allegedly through an individual called “Dillo,” to whom the defendant states he merely referred her. Thus, the court had to assess conflicting versions: one where the defendant was the main fraud actor using the plaintiff’s account, and another where the plaintiff supposedly initiated the counterfeit cheque scheme.

Procedural history and narrowing of the issues

At the outset, the defendant had filed both a counterclaim against the plaintiff and a forced intervention against the Bank of Montreal, presumably to shift or share liability. However, these auxiliary proceedings did not survive to trial. During the hearing, the defendant discontinued his counterclaim against the plaintiff. Earlier, at a case management conference held on 23 September 2025, he had also discontinued his forced intervention against the Bank of Montreal. As a result, the trial focused solely on the plaintiff’s direct claim against the defendant, without cross-claims or third-party claims complicating the allocation of fault. The amount formally claimed by the plaintiff in her action was 23,574.82 CAD, reflecting the alleged overdraft she repaid to the bank, though she had initially demanded 32,000 CAD in a formal demand letter sent to the defendant on 21 February 2022.

Findings on shared responsibility and the plaintiff’s conduct

At the hearing, the plaintiff herself admitted some responsibility for the fraud. She acknowledged that she had provided her “identifiers” (her banking login or access credentials) to the defendant. She also allowed the defendant to use her own mobile phone to deposit the four forged cheques by mobile deposit. This evidence led the court to find that the plaintiff’s conduct was not neutral: by sharing her credentials and granting access to her device and account, she contributed to the situation that enabled the fraudulent deposits. This admission of partial responsibility was central to the court’s analysis of fault apportionment for any non-prescribed portion of the claim.

Impact of prescription on three of the four cheques

A key legal turning point in the case was the application of prescription (limitation). Under article 2925 of the Civil Code of Québec, the general extinctive prescription period for a personal right is three years from the date the right of action arises. The four forged cheques were deposited between 21 October 2020 and 29 December 2020. The plaintiff, however, only filed her claim on 27 December 2023. The court determined that, as of that filing date, more than three years had passed from the dates of the first three cheques (21 October, 2 November, and 9 November 2020). As a result, the portion of her claim arising from these first three deposits was prescribed and could no longer be pursued. This significantly reduced the scope of the litigation, leaving only the claim linked to the fourth cheque—the one dated 29 December 2020 for 4,957.25 CAD—within the prescriptive period. That cheque fell just inside the three-year window because the action was instituted on 27 December 2023, two days before the third anniversary of the cheque’s date.

Apportionment of loss for the fourth cheque and quantum of damages

For the fourth cheque of 4,957.25 CAD, which was not time-barred, the court needed to decide how to allocate responsibility between the parties. In light of the plaintiff’s admission that she was partly responsible—having given the defendant her identifiers and allowed him to use her phone to deposit the cheque—the judge concluded that the loss associated with that cheque should be shared equally. This meant that, although the defendant was found liable in connection with the fraudulent deposit, the plaintiff’s contributory fault justified reducing the defendant’s share to half of the resulting loss. On that basis, the court awarded the plaintiff 2,480 CAD (approximately half of 4,957.25 CAD) as damages relating to the fourth cheque. The remaining claimed sums tied to the first three cheques were not recoverable because they were prescribed, not because the court found no wrongdoing.

Final judgment, successful party, and monetary award

In its dispositive section, the Court of Québec allowed the plaintiff’s action in part. It condemned the defendant, Rubensy Daniel Philemy, to pay the plaintiff, Keslande Victoria Innocent, 2,480 CAD in damages, together with legal interest at the statutory rate and the additional indemnity provided by article 1619 of the Civil Code of Québec, calculated from 21 February 2022, the date of the plaintiff’s formal demand. The court also ordered the defendant to pay 223 CAD in court costs (frais de justice). Thus, the plaintiff is the successful party, having obtained a partial judgment in her favour. The fixed monetary portion of the award totals 2,703 CAD (2,480 CAD in damages plus 223 CAD in costs). The precise additional amounts due for legal interest and the article 1619 indemnity cannot be determined from the judgment itself, as they depend on statutory rates and the ultimate date of payment, but they accrue from 21 February 2022 in favour of the plaintiff.