Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Timely written notice of claim within 60 days of delivery is a mandatory precondition for a maritime carriage action, and its absence renders the claim inadmissible.
• The one-year prescription period for actions arising from a maritime transport contract, even accounting for COVID-19 suspension, had fully expired before the action was filed.
• Delivery of the vehicle at the destination port was established, shifting the risk and subsequent issues (customs, potential theft or fraud) away from the carrier.
• The claimant’s refusal or failure to pay customs duties prevented the charitable consignee from taking delivery, breaking any causal link between the carrier’s conduct and the alleged loss.
• The transport contract showed a declared value of only $1,000 and an express choice by the shipper not to purchase insurance coverage for the shipment.
• Despite the defendant’s absence at trial, the uncontroverted evidence and strict statutory requirements led to dismissal of the claim in its entirety, without costs.

Facts of the case
Elisabeth Atsena brought a claim before the Small Claims Division of the Court of Québec seeking $15,000 in damages against Alpha Bah, doing business as Beta Express. She alleged that Beta Express committed a contractual fault under a maritime contract of carriage of goods. The evidence showed that on 23 September 2019 a contract of maritime transport was concluded between Ms. Atsena and Beta Express for the shipment of a 2004 Toyota Echo from Montreal to the port of Douala in Cameroon. The declared value of the vehicle in the contract was $1,000. The contract also indicated a transport cost of $900 and recorded that Ms. Atsena chose not to take out any insurance coverage for the shipment. Ms. Atsena stated that although the contract mentioned only the vehicle, various personal or other items were inside the car at the time of shipment, even though these additional goods were not specifically listed in the transport contract. The vehicle was delivered to the port of Douala on 23 November 2019. According to Ms. Atsena, the intended consignee was a charitable organization that was supposed to receive the vehicle upon its arrival. However, customs duties were payable at Douala. She explained that the required customs duties were not paid and, as a result, the charitable organization was never able to take possession of the vehicle. She suspected she had been a victim of theft or fraud in connection with the shipment and the events at destination and, on that basis, claimed $15,000 in damages. At the hearing, although Alpha Bah had been duly summoned and called, he did not appear. The court therefore proceeded in his absence, relying on the uncontradicted evidence adduced by Ms. Atsena.

Legal framework and contractual context
Central to the decision was the legal regime under the Civil Code of Québec governing carriage of goods, particularly maritime transport. The judge referred to the statutory requirement that a shipper must give notice of claim to the carrier within 60 days from delivery; failing such notice, the action is not receivable. This requirement flows from article 2050 CCQ, as interpreted in prior Québec case law. The judgment also applied the special one-year limitation period for any action against the carrier, shipper or consignee arising from a maritime transport contract, which runs from the date of delivery of the goods under article 2079 CCQ. In addition, the contract of carriage itself was important contextual evidence. It recorded the modest declared value of the car, the agreed freight of $900, and expressly that no insurance had been purchased by the shipper. This allocation of risk under the contract meant that, in the absence of proof of a fault by the carrier that could be pursued within the statutory framework, the loss risk largely rested on the shipper once the vehicle was delivered at the destination port.

Issues of notice of claim and prescription
The court first addressed procedural admissibility, focusing on the requirement of a written notice of claim within 60 days of delivery. The judge explained to Ms. Atsena at the hearing that she had an obligation to transmit such a notice to the carrier within 60 days from the date of delivery. The evidence demonstrated that she had not sent any notice of claim at all. On that basis alone, the court concluded that her action was not receivable under the governing provision of the Civil Code, as interpreted by earlier appellate and trial decisions cited in the judgment. The court then turned to the limitation period. The vehicle was delivered on 23 November 2019, which meant that, in principle, any action arising from the contract of maritime transport had to be instituted no later than 23 November 2020. However, the court took into account the extraordinary suspension of limitation periods decreed by the Québec government due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By virtue of the relevant order, prescription delays were suspended from 15 March 2020 to 1 September 2020. The effect of this suspension was that the running of the one-year prescription was paused for 179 days and then resumed once the suspension ended. When those 179 days were added to the original one-year period calculated from the 23 November 2019 delivery date, the ultimate deadline for Ms. Atsena to file her action became 17 February 2021. In spite of this extended deadline, her claim was only instituted on 15 November 2021, significantly after the expiry of the adjusted prescription period. The court therefore found that the action was not only inadmissible for want of notice of claim but, in any event, was irretrievably prescribed.

Outcome and consequences
In light of the absence of the required 60-day notice of claim and the expiry of the one-year prescription period, even after accounting for the COVID-19 suspension, the court dismissed the action. The judge expressed sympathy for the events that Ms. Atsena described and for her belief that she had been the victim of theft or fraud. Nonetheless, the strict statutory requirements governing maritime carriage of goods left no legal basis on which her claim could succeed. The undisputed fact that the vehicle had been delivered to the port of Douala, combined with her failure or refusal to pay customs duties and the lack of any timely legal steps, meant that responsibility could not be imposed on the carrier within the applicable legal framework. The court therefore rejected the claim of $15,000 in damages and ordered that the proceedings be dismissed without costs (“sans frais, vu les circonstances”). As a result, the successful party in the litigation was the defendant, Alpha Bah (Beta Express), and no monetary award, damages, or costs of any kind were ordered in his favor or against the plaintiff; the total amount awarded in the judgment was $0.