Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The court considered whether default judgment could proceed against two defaulting defendants while the claim continued against the sole defendant who had filed a response.
   
• Article 183 of the Code of Civil Procedure permits proceeding against defaulting parties first, but allows the court to order a unified proceeding where consistency is required.
   
• All three defendants were named under a single commercial lease, which included a suretyship clause binding two of them as guarantors.
   
• Plaintiff sought a default judgment against the non-responding defendants to expedite enforcement while the claim against the responding defendant remained pending.
   
• Judicial concern centered on the risk that separate judgments could conflict, since some of the responding defendant's defences might benefit all three defendants.
   
• Ultimately, sound administration of justice was found to outweigh procedural expediency, leading to an order for a single, unified proceeding.
   

Facts of the case

Placements Boréal inc. sued Les Prestigieuses Esthétique inc. and two individuals, Frédérique Gauthier and Daphné Arcand, seeking a solidary award of $96,677.27. The claim covers unpaid rent, a penalty equivalent to six months' rent, arrears of municipal and school taxes, repossession costs, and extrajudicial fees. The underlying commercial lease was signed on February 27, 2024, and the plaintiff alleges it was terminated effective October 15, 2025 due to non-payment. Gauthier and Arcand were named as sureties under the lease rather than as the primary tenant. Of the three defendants, only Arcand filed a response; the plaintiff moved for default judgment against Les Prestigieuses Esthétique inc. and Gauthier. Before that motion was heard, the plaintiff served Arcand with a case management notice explaining its intent to pursue default judgment against the other two defendants while continuing the litigation against her. Arcand consented, reserving her right to raise her own defences, and the parties told the court they saw no risk of conflicting outcomes. The special clerk then referred the matter to Justice Breton for determination.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The central provision is article 183 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows a plaintiff to proceed first against defaulting defendants when others remain active in the case, subject to giving notice to all parties under the case protocol. The same article carves out an exception: where the subject matter of the claim, or the need to avoid contradictory judgments, calls for a uniform decision, the court may instead order that the proceeding continue against every defendant together. The suretyship clause within the commercial lease was also relevant, since it ties Gauthier's and Arcand's liability to the same contractual obligations as the primary tenant, Les Prestigieuses Esthétique inc.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Breton turned to prior case-management jurisprudence, including this court's own reasoning in Saint-Basile-le-Grand (Ville de) v. Greaves, to frame case management as serving both administrative efficiency and the broader goal of ensuring justice is not only done but seen to be done for every party. Applying that lens, the court noted that the claims against all three defendants rest on the same lease and the same suretyship clause, with the plaintiff seeking solidary liability from each. Because Arcand had not yet filed her summary of defences, the court could not rule out that some of her arguments — while potentially personal to her — might also reduce or reshape the amount claimed against the other two defendants. Rendering a default judgment immediately, before Arcand's defences were known, risked producing two judgments from two different decision-makers, with a corresponding risk that they could conflict. Weighing procedural efficiency against the integrity of the overall outcome, the court favoured a single, coordinated hearing so that any factual or legal findings would apply consistently across all three defendants.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court ordered that the proceeding continue against all three defendants — Les Prestigieuses Esthétique inc., Frédérique Gauthier, and Daphné Arcand — so that a single judgment would ultimately resolve the claim against each of them, declining the plaintiff's request to sever the case for immediate default judgment against the two non-responding defendants. This was a procedural ruling only; the court did not decide the merits of the underlying $96,677.27 claim, nor did it award any costs or damages, ordering that the decision stand without court costs.