Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The defendant sought revocation of a default judgment under article 346 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which requires a sufficient cause for the default.
   
• Service of the originating application was found valid under articles 116 and 125 because it was handed personally to a manager at the address the enterprise register listed as the company’s domicile.
   
• A sworn statement from the director of strategic projects, claiming no memory of receiving the documents, failed to persuade the court.
   
• Chronology featured in the analysis, since a demand letter for the same grounds and amount reached the defendant’s office eight days before service.
   
• Responsibility for the lapse rested with the defendant’s own organization, unlike cited cases where documents went to a warehouse worker, receptionist or administrative assistant.
   
• Proposed defences of a billing error or a free-of-charge arrangement were contradicted by exhibit P-5, and the alleged damages from defective work were unsupported.
   

Facts of the case

On June 2, 2026, special clerk Patrice Hallé issued a default judgment ordering 9140-5621 Québec inc. to pay $19,060.51 to Fait au Canada inc. The defendant applied to the Court of Québec to have that judgment revoked. Jean Morin, its directing mind, said an employee had not told him the originating action had been served and that he was away on a ski trip in Québec at the time.

A demand letter on the same grounds and for the same amount as the later claim was received on February 16, 2026, at 222 rue Principale in Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick. That address was the defendant’s elected domicile in the enterprise register (REQ) and apparently its actual office, and the letter was received by a person identified only as Myriam F. Morin’s ski trip reportedly ran from February 23 to 27, 2026. On February 24, a bailiff served the originating application at 233 rue Principale in the same municipality, which the REQ listed as the company’s address and also as Morin’s residence. That address appears to have been the home of Stéphanie Ouellet, the defendant’s director of strategic projects, who received the documents in person at 5:30 p.m.

In a sworn statement dated September 11, 2026, Ouellet said she had worked for the defendant for more than twelve years, had no memory of being served or of what she did with the documents, and had been unable to find them. Her statement also said she learned of the originating application and the bailiff’s report on June 29, 2026, while the judgment had come to her attention on June 16. The application was heard on September 14, 2026.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

Article 346 of the Code of Civil Procedure allows a defendant against whom a default judgment was rendered to seek its revocation for a cause considered sufficient. Such an application must be filed within the time limits, state the grounds for revocation and set out the defence to the original claim. Timeliness was not disputed, so only the reasons for the default and the proposed defence were before the court. Service was assessed under articles 116 and 125 of the Code, though the decision does not reproduce their wording. The court also referred to the Court of Appeal’s “communicating vessels” principle from Groupe JSV inc. c. Goal Capital inc., 2014 QCCA 398, under which the more serious the proposed defence appears, the more attention is given to the reasons offered for the default.

Reasoning and analysis

Service complied with articles 116 and 125 because the documents were handed personally to one of the defendant’s managers at the address the REQ designated as the company’s domicile. The court added that Ouellet had in fact received them at her own home, outside working hours.

Her sworn statement left the court perplexed. It required accepting that a long-serving manager had no memory of being served at home, after hours, with a claim of about $19,000 against her employer, eight days after a demand letter had signalled it was coming. Her searches for the documents, the court noted, could only have taken place about four months after service, which made her complete lack of recollection more puzzling still. From this chronology, the court saw two possibilities: either the statements were false, or they showed a remarkable casualness toward a court proceeding.

Ouellet’s position carried weight. As director of strategic projects at a company with between 11 and 25 employees, she was very close to, if not part of, its management. The court distinguished the cases the defendant relied on, where proceedings had been received by a warehouse worker, a receptionist or an administrative assistant, and held that the failure here was attributable to the defendant’s own organization rather than to a third party or junior employee. Morin, moreover, was back from his ski trip within days of service, and the court found it highly unlikely that Ouellet had already forgotten the service and where she had put the documents by then. The reason offered for the default was therefore not a sufficient cause under article 346.

That finding was enough to decide the application, though the court commented on the defence anyway. Borrowing an image from the plaintiff’s counsel, it observed that the communicating vessels principle needs two vessels, and without a valid reason for the default the defence was likely of no use. Even weighing both together would lead to the same result. The defendant’s argument of a billing error or a free-of-charge arrangement for repair work was contradicted by exhibit P-5, filed at the hearing, and the court found the repair work had not been billed and no credit agreement had been made. Its claimed losses from defective work were neither detailed nor supported by the evidence. The court noted that the judgment did not prevent the defendant from bringing its own action if it chose to, since prescription on that front had not run.

Ruling and overall outcome

Fait au Canada inc. prevailed: the court dismissed the application for revocation with legal costs, leaving in place the June 2, 2026 default judgment requiring 9140-5621 Québec inc. to pay it $19,060.51. No amount was stated for the costs awarded on this application.