Case information

Property — Ownership — Injunction — Rights of riparian owners — Dismemberment of right of ownership — Conditions for validity of statement amounting to acquiescence or renunciation — Whether riparian rights are held by private or public owner of foreshore or by owner of land bounded by line of high tide adjacent thereto — Whether owner’s riparian rights can have effect of dismembering right of ownership in foreshore by depriving its owner of usus and fructus and of annulling provincial regulations concerning foreshore — Conditions for acquiescing in use without compensation or for renouncing rights — Whether right to fair and unbiased hearing was infringed — Whether there was discrimination based on social status of spouse — Civil Code of Québec, CQLR, c. CCQ 1991, arts. 920 and 981.

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The parties live in a residential neighbourhood of the municipality of Lévis near the mouth of the Chaudière River. In 2013, the applicant Mr. Thibeault became the owner of parcels of the riverbed where his neighbours anchored their docks. After obtaining confirmation of his right of ownership from the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2018, Mr. Thibeault informed his neighbours — the respondents, Mr. Tremblay, Ms. Cain and Mr. Garnier — that they would now have to agree with him on a lease and pay him rent to anchor their docks to the bottom of the river, and that otherwise they would have to remove the docks from his property. The respondents refused to comply with the demands made by Mr. Thibeault, who then broke the anchoring for their docks and replaced it with temporary ties with a reduced capacity. The respondents therefore brought legal proceedings against the applicants, Mr. Thibeault and Ms. Garon, primarily to obtain a permanent injunction barring the applicants from infringing their riparian rights. The Superior Court ordered the applicants to cease any action that prevented the respondents from installing and using their equipment. The Court of Appeal allowed the motion to dismiss the appeal and dismissed the appeal, finding that it had no reasonable chance of success.