Doyon, Baudouin, Kalichman

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court granting in part an application for damages. Allowed.

The respondents brought an action against the appellant for construction defects. The trial was held in January 2022. The initial claim of $131,624 was reduced to $72,874 during oral arguments, following a formal application to amend. On August 23, 2022, the trial judge condemned the appellant to pay $27,339 to both respondents and $10,000 to one of them.

The appellant was granted leave to appeal after arguing, among other things, that the Superior Court judge no longer had jurisdiction to determine the case once the amount claimed was amended and fell below $85,000.

The subject-matter jurisdiction of a court is of public order and cannot be disregarded. At the time this case was heard, the Code of Civil Procedure (CQLR, c. C-25.01) (CCP) provided that the Court of Québec had exclusive jurisdiction over disputes whose value was below $85,00. In the second paragraph of article 35 CCP, the legislature expressly set out the consequences of a change during the proceeding causing the value of the dispute to fall above or below the jurisdiction of the Court of Québec. Thus, once the originating application was amended, the Court of Québec alone was competent to hear and determine an application brought before the Superior Court where the amount claimed was below $85,000.

As the Court stated in 9045-5643 Québec inc. c. Gaudreault (C.A., 2008-06-05), 2008 QCCA 1066, SOQUIJ AZ-50495481, B.E. 2008BE-751 (at para. 3): [translation] “[A] court does not lose its initial jurisdiction based on the evidence or admissions in lieu thereof”. However, the situation is different when a pleading is amended, as is the case here. Following an amendment, the application before the court upon which its jurisdiction is based is no longer the same.

The Superior Court therefore de facto lost its jurisdiction and should have referred the case to the Court of Québec, which it must do now.

Text of the decision: http://citoyens.soquij.qc.ca