Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Limitation period for civil claims alleging malicious or abusive prosecution against a municipality, and applicability of the six-month prescription in section 586 of the Loi sur les cités et villes.
• Characterization of the claimed harm as moral (psychological stress, anxiety and inconvenience) rather than bodily injury, and resulting exclusion of the three-year bodily injury prescription.
• Determination of when the right of action arose for prescription purposes, focusing on the date of acquittal and knowledge of the judgment despite it being rendered orally with interpretation.
• Interaction between damages claimed under section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and statutory limitation periods, including rejection of the notion that such Charter damages are imprescriptible.
• Assessment of whether the City’s motion to dismiss for irrecevability and prescription was abusive under article 51 C.p.c., and the court’s finding that the procedure was legitimate and not excessive.
• Consequences of prescription on the admissibility of a small claims action and allocation of costs against the plaintiff following dismissal.

Facts of the case

Fang Hu filed a claim before the Small Claims Division of the Court of Québec against the Ville de Montréal. He sought $15,000 in damages arising from a municipal court prosecution identified as case number 122 359 060, in which criminal charges had been laid against him and in respect of which he was ultimately acquitted in 2025. In his application and prior demand letter, Hu alleged that the City of Montreal and its police service (SPVM) had engaged in a malicious and false prosecution. He claimed they had made false accusations, provided false information to city prosecutors, and perverted the facts, resulting in significant harm to him and his family. He linked this alleged misconduct to negative decisions in family court and asserted that the wrongful proceedings had caused serious psychological harm, including anxiety, stress, and ongoing troubles and inconveniences. Hu also invoked sections 2(b) and 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, arguing that his fundamental rights had been violated and that he was entitled to compensation for Charter breaches in addition to general civil damages.

The underlying criminal/penal proceedings were conducted in the Municipal Court of the City of Montreal. According to the judgment, a municipal judge acquitted Hu of one of two charges on 26 March 2025, delivering the decision orally in Hu’s presence, with the assistance of a Mandarin interpreter and an amicus curiae lawyer. Hu later obtained transcripts of several hearing days in August 2025. He argued that the time needed to obtain and understand these transcripts affected the running of any prescription period, since he believed he could only fully grasp the judgment’s implications once the transcription was produced.

Procedural history and the motion to dismiss

In February 2026, the City of Montreal responded by filing a motion in irrecevability and for dismissal under articles 101 and 168 of the Code of Civil Procedure, relying also on section 586 of the Loi sur les cités et villes. The City argued that Hu’s civil claim was prescribed because more than six months had elapsed between the final municipal court judgment and the initiation of the small claims action on 5 December 2025. The City characterized Hu’s remedy as one in civil liability for damages, including moral damages, arising from what he described as malicious or abusive prosecution. As such, the City maintained that the short six-month limitation under section 586 applied, and that prescription had begun to run no later than the date of acquittal (or at the latest at the expiry of the Crown’s appeal period).

Hu opposed the motion and advanced several arguments. He contended that proceedings based on the Canadian Charter were either not subject to prescription or were governed by the general three-year limitation in article 2925 of the Civil Code of Québec. He also argued that his claim was not a civil action but one grounded in the Criminal Code, such that the municipal limitation provision in the Loi sur les cités et villes should not apply. Further, he asserted that section 586 did not apply because he was not suing municipal employees personally but rather “the owner of the City,” namely His Majesty the King. Finally, he claimed that the oral nature of the acquittal and the subsequent need for transcription meant he did not have effective knowledge of the judgment, so the time limit should run from when he received and could analyze the transcripts. During the hearing, Hu further suggested that the City’s motion itself was abusive litigation, although the City vigorously disputed this characterization.

Legal framework on prescription and abusive proceedings

The court began by recalling the principles that govern preliminary motions in irrecevability under article 168 C.p.c. At this stage, the judge must treat the factual allegations of the originating application as true, without being bound by the legal labels applied by the claimant, and must decide whether, even on those assumed facts, the action is clearly without legal foundation. The court emphasized that when the legal situation is clear and unambiguous, it is consistent with sound judicial administration to terminate the litigation summarily rather than allow a plainly untenable claim to proceed.

Turning to prescription, the court analyzed section 586 of the Loi sur les cités et villes, which establishes a six-month limitation period for any action, proceeding or claim against a municipality or its officials for damages resulting from faults or illegalities. This short prescription, however, does not apply where the claim is for bodily injury; in such cases the three-year limitation in article 2925 C.c.Q. governs. To determine whether the longer bodily injury prescription applies, courts focus on the nature of the initial injury rather than the downstream consequences. In particular, Quebec and Supreme Court authority has held that unjustified arrest and related violations of liberty and reputation typically give rise to moral damages, not bodily injury, unless there is an actual physical assault or similar bodily intrusion. Psychological stress, humiliation and loss of freedom, in the absence of a physical integrity breach, are treated as moral damage, subject to the short limitation when municipalities are sued.

The court also reviewed the rule that, in extra-contractual liability, the right of action arises when the creditor knows, or reasonably should know, of the fault, the injury, and the causal connection between them. In malicious or abusive prosecution claims, appellate jurisprudence has specified that the prescription period is suspended until a final judgment is rendered in the allegedly abusive proceedings. It would be inequitable to require a person to sue for malicious prosecution before knowing whether the prosecution ends in acquittal, conviction, or some other outcome. Once a final judgment is delivered—especially an acquittal in a criminal or penal case—the person has all the essential information needed to assess whether to pursue a civil remedy. If the accused is convicted or pleads guilty, any malicious prosecution claim effectively collapses.

Application of the law to Hu’s claim

Applying these principles, the court first characterized Hu’s injury as moral rather than bodily. His own allegations focused on psychological stress, anxiety, and ongoing troubles and inconveniences arising from the allegedly malicious charges and proceedings. There was no suggestion of a physical assault or other direct interference with bodily integrity. On that basis, the court held that the three-year bodily injury prescription did not apply and that Hu’s claim fell squarely under the six-month limitation of section 586 of the Loi sur les cités et villes.

Next, the court concluded that Hu’s claim for damages under section 24 of the Canadian Charter did not escape prescription. Charter-based monetary remedies for abusive prosecutions remain subject to ordinary limitation rules; they are not imprescriptible. As a result, both his civil liability claim and his Charter damages claim were governed by the same six-month municipal limitation period. The court rejected Hu’s argument that invoking sections 2(b) and 24 could extend, displace, or nullify the applicable prescription.

Regarding the moment when prescription began to run, the court took as the relevant starting point the date of acquittal, 26 March 2025, or, at the latest, the expiry of the prosecutor’s appeal period. At that time, Hu was present in court, assisted by a Mandarin interpreter, and therefore knew he had been acquitted of one of the charges. This knowledge sufficed to inform him that he might have a civil remedy for malicious prosecution and triggered the running of the prescription period. The court found that the absence of a written judgment at that moment, or the later reception of transcripts in August 2025, did not delay the start of prescription. Hu did not require a transcription to understand the essential fact that he had been acquitted and that he believed the prosecution to be malicious. Consequently, he had all the material elements to decide whether to initiate a civil action.

Because Hu filed his small claims application only on 5 December 2025, the court held that he missed the six-month deadline that expired no later than late September 2025. The action was therefore prescribed when introduced. On this basis, the court found that Hu’s claim had no legal foundation and granted the City’s motion in irrecevability and for dismissal.

Finding on alleged abusive procedure and outcome

Hu also attempted to portray the City’s preliminary motion as an abuse of process under article 51 C.p.c., arguing that the City was misusing procedural tools to thwart his attempt at redress. The court examined the City’s conduct through the lens of abusive proceedings jurisprudence, which targets excessive or bad-faith use of procedure designed to cause prejudice, delay, or harassment. It concluded that there was no abuse: the City had raised a clear, valid and ultimately meritorious prescription defence at an early stage, precisely as contemplated by the Code of Civil Procedure. By obtaining the dismissal of a prescribed claim, the City was not engaging in oppressive litigation tactics but exercising its legitimate rights.

In its dispositive conclusions, the court allowed the City’s motion in irreceivability and dismissal, rejected Hu’s small claims action in its entirety as prescribed under section 586 of the Loi sur les cités et villes, and denied his request to have the City’s motion declared abusive. It then ordered Hu to pay the City’s judicial costs in the amount of $382. No damages or other monetary sum were awarded to Hu; the only monetary order was this modest cost award in favor of the Ville de Montréal. Thus, the successful party was the City of Montreal, which obtained complete dismissal of the action and a total monetary award of $382 in costs against the plaintiff.