Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Appellants challenged a Superior Court decision that had dismissed their application to revoke a default judgment against their brother.
   
• Timing of the "presentation" versus the "hearing" of a revocation application under article 347 C.C.P. formed the central legal dispute.
   
• Justice Demers had equated presenting an application with pleading it, relying on a prior Superior Court decision for that interpretation.
   
• Sworn statements from the appellants explaining their inaction were never filed, prompting scrutiny of counsel's unsupported explanations at trial.
   
• Capacity concerns framed the background, since the impleaded party had been declared incapable of managing his person and property.
   
• Court of Appeal found the lower court's reading of article 347 C.C.P. inconsistent with the broader scheme of the Code.
   

Facts of the case

Edith Elaine Gammon and Laura Jean Clements are the sisters of Archibald Cameron. On January 30, 2024, a default judgment ordering the passing of title was rendered against Cameron in favour of 9427-1947 Québec inc. After learning of the judgment around March 21, 2024, the sisters filed a protective voluntary intervention on April 11, 2024, seeking revocation of the judgment and asking to be named provisional tutors to their brother, on the basis that he had been incapable of contracting when he accepted the purchase offer underlying the respondent's action. The file proceeded through a series of timetables and adjournments between April 2024 and October 2024, when it was adjourned sine die. The file became ready for trial only at the end of January 2025, and the appellants then failed to take steps to have their revocation application set down for hearing, despite being prompted by the respondent in late February and early April 2025. On May 7, 2025, the respondent applied to dismiss the revocation application on the sole ground that no hearing date had been set. At the hearing on August 26, 2025, the appellants' counsel, Me Nicholas Chine, took personal responsibility for the delay, attributing it to personal difficulties over the winter, but filed no sworn statement from his clients. Justice Ian Demers denied a request to remedy that gap and dismissed the revocation application on the spot, finding it had been presented more than 30 days after service. Separately, on April 17, 2025, Cameron had been declared incapable of caring for himself and managing his property, with a protection mandate homologated in favour of Edith Elaine Gammon.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The central provision was article 347 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which requires that an application for revocation of judgment be served within 30 days of the party learning of the grounds for revocation, and then presented to the court within 30 days after service, with an outer limit of six months from the judgment; these time limits are expressly described as strict. Justice Demers had read the word "presented" in the second paragraph as synonymous with "pleaded," effectively requiring the revocation application to be fully argued and heard within 30 days of service. The Court of Appeal considered this reading against articles 399 and 400 C.C.P., which govern habeas corpus applications and distinguish clearly between an application being "presented" and being "tried." The Court also referred to article 19 C.C.P., which gives parties control over the conduct of their file within established procedural time limits, and to article 84 C.C.P., which sets out the evidentiary burden of demonstrating a factual impossibility to act.

Reasoning and analysis

Writing for the panel, Justice Hardy concluded that Justice Demers had misread article 347 C.C.P. Treating "presented" as equivalent to "pleaded" would require every revocation application to be argued and disposed of within 30 days of service, regardless of the steps needed to make the file ready for hearing or the availability of the court and counsel — a result the panel viewed as unreasonable and inconsistent with the broader structure of the Code. Drawing on articles 399 and 400, which distinguish an application's presentation from its trial, the Court held that "presentation" under article 347 refers to the date on which the application is placed on the hearing roll, not the date on which it is actually argued. Once presented, the parties retain control over moving the file forward diligently under article 19 C.C.P., subject to the opposing party's ability to seek expedited orders or dismissal if delay causes it real prejudice. Applying this reading, the panel noted that the appellants' revocation application had been served on April 11, 2024 and presented on April 24, 2024, within the 30-day period, so the later adjournments did not trigger any obligation to prove a factual impossibility to act under article 84 C.C.P. While the respondent had legitimate grounds to complain about the appellants' inaction between late January and early May 2025, this did not amount to a breach of a strict time limit, and there was no allegation or evidence that the delay caused the respondent serious prejudice justifying summary dismissal. Given this conclusion, the panel found it unnecessary to address whether Justice Demers had also erred in refusing to allow the appellants to file sworn statements or in rejecting counsel's explanations.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal brought by Edith Elaine Gammon and Laura Jean Clements, set aside the Superior Court judgment that had dismissed their application for revocation, and substituted a judgment dismissing the respondent's application to dismiss the revocation application instead. Legal costs were awarded in favour of the appellants at both levels, though the judgment does not specify a monetary amount.