Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Ellioth Theleus claimed $15,000 from his insurer, La Capitale Assurances générales inc., for personal property stolen from his residence on April 23, 2021.
• Central to the dispute was whether the insured made fraudulent misrepresentations during his claim, which under Article 2472 of the Civil Code of Québec would result in forfeiture of his right to indemnification.
• The insurer bore the burden of proving, by a preponderance of evidence, that the insured's declarations were intentionally false and made to obtain a benefit to which he was not entitled.
• Admitted policy limitations capped indemnification for cash at $200, jewelry at $1,000, and excluded drone loss entirely.
• Several items on the claimed list were found to belong to the insured's then-partner and were therefore not compensable to him.
• Contradictions in the insured's statements were attributed to good-faith errors made under stress, not fraudulent intent.

Facts of the case

On April 23, 2021, Ellioth Theleus (the Insured) suffered a theft at his residence shortly after moving in. He subsequently filed a claim with his insurer, La Capitale Assurances générales inc. (the Insurer), seeking $15,000 for the loss of personal property — a figure reduced from the admitted total value of $25,800 to stay within the jurisdictional limit of the Small Claims Division of the Court of Québec. Annie Scrivo, the Insured's partner at the time of the theft, was initially a co-claimant but withdrew from the proceedings on January 20, 2026. The Insurer had already compensated the Insured for damage to a door of the residence but contested the broader property claim, alleging that the Insured had made fraudulent misrepresentations in order to obtain an indemnity to which he was not entitled.

Policy terms and contractual clauses at issue

The parties admitted the insurance policy into evidence as Exhibit D-1, along with its limitations and exclusions. The policy limited indemnification for cash losses to $200 and jewelry losses to $1,000, and expressly excluded coverage for drone loss. The list of claimed items, tendered as Exhibit D-10, contained 29 items with an admitted total value of $25,800. The parties did not dispute the values assigned to those items.

Court's reasoning and analysis

The Insurer invoked Article 2472 of the Civil Code of Québec, which provides that any fraudulent declaration causes the maker to forfeit the right to indemnification for the risk to which that declaration relates. The Insurer relied on circumstantial evidence — specifically, a pattern of indices it argued, taken together, established a presumption of fact under Article 2849 C.c.Q. that the Insured had lied. These indices included: an alleged false declaration regarding possession of a video projector listed as stolen; inconsistencies in the Insured's account of how and where certain items were purchased; and the absence of receipts for most of the claimed items.

The court rejected each of these indices as insufficient. On the projector — described by the Insurer's claims investigator, Véronique Ménard, as the "key piece" of evidence — the Insurer failed to call its principal witness, Marc-Antoine Lavoie, whose testimony was intended to establish a possible falsehood. Without that testimony, the court could not make a finding against the Insured on this point. Even if the witness had testified, the court noted, the Insured had provided a plausible explanation: he had contacted Lavoie not to purchase the projector but solely to establish its value. On the absence of receipts, the court observed that the Insurer itself had admitted the Insured's possession of certain items for which no receipts were provided — undermining the weight of this index. As for the inconsistencies in the Insured's account of purchasing items through social media, the court found this practice entirely lawful and consistent with second-hand transactions. The Insurer's own investigator further acknowledged that the investigation revealed no financial motive for fraud, noting the Insured had no financial or credit difficulties at the time of the theft.

The court found the Insured credible. His contradictions were attributed to the stress of having his claim referred to investigation and ultimately denied — a situation he described as unjust, occurring so soon after moving into a new home. The court concluded that these were good-faith errors made by an inexperienced and stressed individual, not evidence of fraudulent intent, consistent with the applicable jurisprudence.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court partially granted the Insured's claim. From the claimed $15,000, the court applied the admitted policy limitations and exclusions: the combined indemnification for cash and jewelry (items 15–19) was capped at $1,200 instead of $10,150, a reduction of $8,950; the drone (item 27, valued at $2,250) was excluded entirely; and three items belonging to the Insured's former partner — a gaming console (item 5), sunglasses (item 14), and a pair of shoes (item 25), totalling $1,850 — were also deducted. After subtracting $13,050 in total from the $15,000 claim, the court ordered La Capitale Assurances générales inc. to pay Ellioth Theleus $1,950, plus legal interest and the additional indemnity under Article 1619 C.c.Q. from November 30, 2021 — the date the formal demand was sent — as well as court costs of $217, a total of $2,167.