Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Benjamin Hemond withheld payment for balcony construction work, citing alleged defects and the one-year statutory warranty under article 2120 C.C.Q.
   
• Contractor Signé François Paquette Inc. sued for $12,886.94, the unpaid balance of its invoice.
   
• Defects identified by the defendant's expert were found to pose potential risks but had caused no actual damage to date.
   
• Expert testimony shifted between the written report and the hearing, moving from a full teardown recommendation to a more limited repair proposal.
   
• Only one reliable cost estimate for the corrective work, roughly $2,000, was before the Tribunal.
   
• Judgment split the disputed labour costs in half to reflect the acknowledged need for remedial work.
   

Facts of the case

Signé François Paquette Inc. carried out balcony construction and exterior cladding touch-up work for Benjamin Hemond and invoiced $12,886.94. Hemond refused to pay, alleging defects (malfaçons) in the work and invoking the one-year warranty in article 2120 C.C.Q. He filed a cross-claim for $15,000 to cover the cost of redoing the work. At the hearing, Hemond softened his position: he no longer pressed the cross-claim and offered to pay $5,815.17 (before taxes) for the materials supplied, most of which could be reused — an amount close to his earlier September 24, 2024 offer (D-1). His expert, technologist Jeffrey Bibaud, initially maintained in his report (D-3) that the balcony needed to be fully dismantled and rebuilt, with no acceptable half-measure. Under questioning at the hearing, however, Bibaud proposed an alternative: correcting the defective flashing at the base of the cladding without demolishing the entire balcony — a solution he called not ideal but safe. Bibaud also acknowledged that the defects described in his report, which François Paquette attributed instead to site conditions, were potential risks that had caused no damage so far. Questioned by the Tribunal, François Paquette accepted that some corrections were needed and estimated the cost of the work suggested by Bibaud at approximately $2,000 — the only cost estimate before the court, since Bibaud himself could not put a figure on it.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The Tribunal applied several provisions of the Civil Code of Québec. Article 1458 C.C.Q. requires contracting parties to respect the content of their contract, entitling a compliant party to full, correct, and timely performance from the other. For construction contracts specifically, article 2098 C.C.Q. governs the contract, article 2100 C.C.Q. requires the contractor to act with prudence and diligence in the client's best interests, and article 2120 C.C.Q. imposes a one-year warranty on the work — the provision Hemond relied on to refuse payment. The burden of proving contractual fault by a preponderance of evidence falls on the claimant, per articles 2803 and 2804 C.C.Q. Damages claimed are limited to what was foreseeable at contract formation (article 1613 C.C.Q.), and a claimant must mitigate its own damages (article 1479 C.C.Q.). The additional indemnity ultimately ordered was based on article 1619 C.C.Q.

Reasoning and analysis

The Tribunal found that the existence of the contract, the performance of the work, and the non-payment were undisputed, as was the existence of some defects — what remained contested was their seriousness and value. Photos in the D-3 expert report showed completed work with some sloppy aspects, requiring essentially cosmetic fixes along with correction of flashing at the base of the wall cladding, whose finish suffered from the uneven foundation beneath it. The Tribunal accepted that some corrective work was necessary but found Bibaud's original recommendation of a full rebuild exaggerated, preferring the more measured solution he proposed at the hearing. It treated Paquette's $2,000 estimate — about a third of the labour originally billed — as plausible, though possibly conservative given that some dismantling would still be required before repairs could be made. Since Hemond had already conceded the materials cost was owed, the Tribunal exercised its discretion to divide the disputed labour portion of the invoice in half rather than accept either party's full position. Labour made up just over half the original invoice, $7,070 of $12,886 [judgment states the invoice total as $12,886 here, versus $12,886.94 stated at para 1], so the Tribunal cut that figure by $3,535. The remaining elements of the claim, including the interest rate sought (which Hemond had not accepted) and compensation for time spent bringing the claim, were dismissed as unfounded or non-compensable. The cross-claim was treated as resolved by this reduction to the invoice.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Tribunal granted the claim in part. It ordered Benjamin Hemond to pay Signé François Paquette Inc. $9,351, plus legal interest and the additional indemnity under article 1619 C.C.Q., running from October 14, 2024, the date of formal notice. Each party was left to bear its own costs given the mixed result.