Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Existence of a binding employment contract was disputed due to a suspensive condition requiring satisfactory background checks that was never fulfilled.
• Allegation of constructive dismissal failed because any potential change in salary stemmed from a third-party client (PFR), not Cofomo, and the plaintiff voluntarily withdrew from the hiring process.
• Claim for notice pay and loss of income was undermined by continuous, better-paid employment with Bell Canada and later CBC/Radio-Canada, leaving no provable financial loss.
• Extensive claims for moral and punitive damages lacked medical proof and causal link to Cofomo’s conduct, and the Court found Cofomo had acted in good faith and with transparency.
• Charter-based allegations of discrimination, harassment and violations of dignity and freedom of conscience were rejected for want of evidence of any illicit or intentional rights infringement.
• The modified originating application was declared abusive, as the claims were objectively unsustainable in fact and law, framed with disproportionate monetary demands, and showed procedural temerity.

Background and parties

Rose Maliza-Mapemba is a senior network analysis specialist who, while employed by Bell Canada, began exploring other opportunities in spring 2022. She contacted Cofomo Développement inc. (Cofomo), an IT consulting company that hires employees and assigns them on mandates with client companies. Cofomo operates with a typical consulting model: employees are hired by Cofomo, work on client mandates, may experience “inter-mandate” bench periods, and sometimes move to permanent employment with a client under a “temp to perm” (temporary to permanent) arrangement. In this structure, the employment link is initially with Cofomo, and a later offer of permanence—if any—comes directly from the client and is not guaranteed.

Recruitment process and conditional offer

Within this framework, Cofomo identified a potential opportunity for Maliza-Mapemba with one of its clients, Produits forestiers Résolu (PFR). Through its talent attraction adviser, Roberto Fiorito, and its business development director, Martine David, Cofomo obtained Maliza-Mapemba’s consent to present her candidacy to PFR. The plaintiff indicated she was seeking a permanent role with a minimum annual salary of CAD 120,000 and four weeks of vacation, consistent with her Bell Canada compensation. After a successful interview process, Cofomo sent her a written employment agreement (the Convention) on 29 June 2022. The Convention provided that she would join Cofomo as a full-time IT consultant as of 11 July 2022, with an annual salary of CAD 120,000. Crucially, clause 1.2 specified that the offer was conditional on the results of background checks required by Cofomo and/or the client. The background verification was to be performed by an external provider, Certn Canada, and the results had to be received and found satisfactory before the employment relationship could crystallize. Maliza-Mapemba electronically signed the Convention the same day, expressing enthusiasm about joining the Cofomo team. However, at this point the background check process had only just been triggered, and Cofomo had not yet received any final clearance.

Client salary terms and plaintiff’s withdrawal

Shortly after the Convention was signed but before any start date or resignation from Bell Canada, David contacted Maliza-Mapemba to clarify salary conditions on the PFR side. David advised that while Cofomo would pay her CAD 120,000 annually during the contract period, PFR’s internal structure meant that if PFR later offered her a permanent role after the “temp to perm” mandate, the permanent salary at PFR would be CAD 100,000 plus an approximate 7% bonus and benefits valued at about 30% of salary. This difference was explained as an internal equity constraint at PFR, not a decision by Cofomo to reduce what it would pay the plaintiff. Maliza-Mapemba responded that a CAD 100,000 salary fell below her existing Bell Canada earnings and the 120,000 she expected, and she expressly wrote that she had to withdraw. David confirmed that PFR would not move on the 120,000 permanent salary, apologized, and reiterated that Cofomo did not want her to resign from Bell only to be surprised in five or six months. The plaintiff replied acknowledging and thanking them. The background check results never reached Cofomo. The Court found it most plausible that her withdrawal coincided with the period in which Certn would have processed the file, so the suspensive condition—satisfactory background verification—was never fulfilled and the employment contract never became fully formed.

Subsequent job opportunities and employment history

Despite the breakdown of the PFR opportunity, Cofomo continued to treat Maliza-Mapemba as a potential candidate. After she contacted Fiorito again in July 2022 via LinkedIn, Cofomo proposed additional roles with other clients, including VIA Rail, the Sûreté du Québec, the McGill University Health Centre, the Communications Security Establishment and Investissement Québec, but none of these led to a hire. Throughout this period, Maliza-Mapemba remained employed at Bell Canada without interruption until 26 May 2023, earning approximately CAD 121,900 annually, slightly more than the salary in the Convention. She then moved to a new job at CBC/Radio-Canada on 29 May 2023 and stayed there until autumn 2024. Parallel to this case, she filed several high-value damages actions against Bell Canada, a Canadian Tire merchant, a life insurer, and CBC/Radio-Canada, alleging illegal practices and severe health consequences, with claimed amounts ranging from over CAD 1.6 million up to more than CAD 44 million in various files.

Claims and legal issues before the Court

In this action, Maliza-Mapemba filed a modified originating application claiming a total of CAD 127,000 from Cofomo. She sought CAD 27,000 as indemnity in lieu of notice, based on an asserted one year of lost remuneration offset by her Bell Canada salary, CAD 100,000 in moral damages for depression, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, loss of dignity and self-esteem, and an unspecified amount of punitive damages for alleged violations of rights under the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. She framed the case as one of wrongful or constructive dismissal, arguing that a valid employment contract had been formed, Cofomo had effectively reduced her salary expectations by linking the PFR permanent role to CAD 100,000, and that this constituted a unilateral, substantial modification of an essential term. Cofomo denied all fault and damage and filed a counterclaim asking that the modified application be declared abusive under articles 51 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure, though it ultimately withdrew its own damages conclusions and sought only a declaration of abuse and costs.

Contract formation and the suspensive condition

The central legal question was whether a binding contract of employment ever existed between Maliza-Mapemba and Cofomo. The Court applied article 1497 of the Civil Code of Québec and doctrinal and case law on conditions suspensives. It emphasized that an offer of employment subject to a satisfactory background check is a classic suspensive condition: no binding obligation arises until the condition is fulfilled. Here, the Convention expressly provided that the offer was “conditionnelle aux résultats des enquêtes exigées par Cofomo et/ou le CLIENT.” The Court found that the background check results never reached Cofomo and that the plaintiff could not explain this absence. On the evidence, the most likely scenario was that her withdrawal and Certn’s processing window overlapped so that the condition was never realized. The Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the background check was merely secondary or accessory; it held that both the wording of the clause and the testimony from Cofomo’s witnesses showed this was an essential, fundamental precondition to any employment relationship. Because the suspensive condition was never met, the Court concluded there was no contract of employment and thus no contractual foundation for a dismissal claim, notice claim, or contractual damages.

Constructive dismissal and alleged salary reduction

The Court nonetheless analyzed, in the alternative, whether there would have been constructive dismissal if a contract had existed. Under Québec case law, constructive dismissal requires a unilateral decision by the employer, a substantial modification of essential terms of employment, the employee’s refusal of those changes, and the employee’s departure. Maliza-Mapemba argued that Cofomo had effectively reduced her agreed salary from CAD 120,000 to CAD 100,000 by communicating PFR’s permanent salary range, pushing her to withdraw. The Court held that she conflated two distinct remuneration structures: the CAD 120,000 annual salary payable by Cofomo under the Convention and the CAD 100,000 plus bonus and benefits that PFR might offer later if it independently chose to hire her permanently. PFR was never her employer, was not party to any contract with her, and was acting as a third-party client. The salary limitation at PFR was the client’s internal policy, not a unilateral decision by Cofomo to modify the Convention. Cofomo remained prepared to pay the full CAD 120,000 during the consulting mandate and, if PFR never offered a permanent role, Maliza-Mapemba would have stayed a Cofomo employee at that salary or been placed “on the bench” pending another mandate. The Court also noted that the plaintiff understood this structure and had acknowledged that she would remain a Cofomo employee even if PFR declined to keep her after six months. On the facts, there was no unilateral change to her agreed Cofomo salary. Rather, the plaintiff, fully informed and advised not to resign from Bell prematurely, freely chose to withdraw from the recruitment process because she was dissatisfied with the potential PFR permanent salary. This was characterized as a voluntary withdrawal or de facto resignation from the hiring process, not a constructive dismissal. Even had a contract existed, the criteria for constructive dismissal were not met.

Notice, lost income and mitigation

Given the absence of any dismissal or even a completed employment relationship with Cofomo, the Court held that Maliza-Mapemba had no right to an indemnity in lieu of notice under article 2091 C.C.Q. In any event, the evidence showed that she continued working for Bell Canada throughout the episode, with no interruption in employment or salary. Her Bell salary of approximately CAD 121,900 per year exceeded the CAD 120,000 she would have earned at Cofomo, and she later moved directly to CBC/Radio-Canada without any gap. As a result, she did not suffer any loss of income. The Court emphasized that the purpose of a notice period is to cushion the impact of a unilateral termination and allow time to find replacement employment. Here, she neither lost her job at Bell because of Cofomo nor experienced any earnings shortfall traceable to Cofomo’s conduct. The Court concluded that, even if constructive dismissal had been found, she would still have had no compensable economic loss because any hypothetical damage would have been fully mitigated by her ongoing and later employment.

Moral damages, health allegations and causation

On the claim for moral damages, Maliza-Mapemba alleged a range of serious psychological and physical problems, including depression, chronic pain and post-traumatic stress, and asserted that the Cofomo incident was the catalyst for a downward spiral. The Court found the evidentiary record did not support these claims. Her own medical records showed she had been on sick leave from Bell since 24 June 2022—before the critical events with Cofomo—due to a negative work climate at Bell. She herself acknowledged that Cofomo was not the sole cause of her difficulties. No expert medical evidence was filed to link the alleged health consequences directly to Cofomo’s actions. Viewed against this context and the other high-value lawsuits filed in parallel, the Court held that she had not proved either a distinct, wrongful employer conduct by Cofomo or a causal nexus between Cofomo’s behaviour and any compensable moral harm.

Punitive damages and Charter claims

For punitive damages under article 49 of the Québec Charter and article 1621 C.C.Q., the Court reiterated that two cumulative elements are required: an illicit infringement of a Charter right and the intentional character of that infringement. It reviewed leading Supreme Court guidance on what constitutes an “atteinte illicite et intentionnelle,” focusing on whether the defendant wanted the harmful consequences or acted in full knowledge that such consequences were the immediate, natural or extremely probable result of its conduct. Maliza-Mapemba alleged violations of her dignity and freedom of conscience, workplace discrimination, and harassment contrary to several Charter provisions. However, she did not specify clear grounds of discrimination and offered no evidence that Fiorito or other Cofomo employees acted with malice, bad faith or discriminatory intent. Her harassment allegations boiled down to the fact that Fiorito and two colleagues sent her a small number of follow-up messages about job opportunities by email and LinkedIn, even when she did not respond. The Court found that the content and frequency of these messages were entirely incompatible with harassment, especially since she never told them to stop sending her opportunities. On the record, the Court concluded that Cofomo and its representatives behaved with good faith, transparency and even benevolence toward her. There was no illicit or intentional Charter infringement and thus no basis for punitive damages.

Abusive proceedings and procedural abuse

Cofomo also asked the Court to declare the modified originating application abusive under article 51 C.p.c. Although the bar for abuse is set high to avoid discouraging access to justice, the Court held that this case met that threshold. It highlighted that abusive proceedings include those that are manifestly unfounded, frivolous, disproportionate, or characterized by temerity—particularly when allegations collapse under careful analysis and claim amounts bear no reasonable relation to the real dispute. The Court found that every substantive component of Maliza-Mapemba’s claim was untenable: the contract of employment never came into existence, she had voluntarily withdrawn from the recruitment process, there was no constructive dismissal, no provable economic loss, no evidence of moral damages or medical causation, and no proof of any Charter violation. It stressed that a reasonable, prudent person in the same circumstances would not have launched or pursued such a claim. The Court also noted the exaggerated and legally unmoored nature of certain legal arguments used to quantify damages—such as invoking provisions of the Canada Labour Code and the Criminal Code that had no application to the facts—as indicative of a reckless and disproportionate approach. In light of all this, the Court concluded that the modified application was objectively insupportable in fact and law and amounted to an abusive proceeding within the meaning of article 51 C.p.c.

Final orders and outcome

In its disposition, the Court held that Maliza-Mapemba had failed to discharge her burden of proof on all aspects of her claim. It dismissed the entirety of her modified originating application, including the demands for notice pay, moral damages and punitive damages. The Court granted Cofomo’s counterclaim to the extent of declaring the plaintiff’s modified originating application abusive and ordered the payment of legal costs (frais de justice) in Cofomo’s favour. However, the judgment did not award Cofomo any specific amount of compensatory or punitive damages, because Cofomo had abandoned those conclusions, nor did it quantify the court costs, which remain to be determined in the usual procedural manner. Accordingly, the successful party is Cofomo Développement inc., and while it is entitled to recover its legal costs from Maliza-Mapemba, the exact monetary amount of those costs and any related financial recovery cannot be determined from the text of the decision.