Case information

Civil liability — Relative immunity of Crown — Autoroute — Sound pollution from motor vehicle traffic — No fault liability scheme — Neighbourhood disturbance — Abnormal and excessive annoyances — Policy decisions — Whether Court of Appeal erred in applying public common law rule that Crown has relative immunity to no fault civil liability scheme provided for in art. 976 of C.C.Q. — Whether Quebec government can claim relative immunity to avoid environmental liability or liability for unlawful interference with right protected by Charter of human rights and freedoms — Civil Code of Québec, CQLR, c. CCQ 1991, arts. 300, 976 and 1376 — Environment Quality Act, CQLR, c. Q 2, ss. 19.1, 20 and 126 — Charter of human rights and freedoms, CQLR, c. C 12, s. 49.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

In 2009, the applicant applied for authorization to institute a class action against Quebec’s Ministère des Transports on behalf of a group of residents of a neighbourhood in the city of Charlesbourg. The residents had been complaining since the 1980s of noise from traffic on the Laurentian Autoroute. They sought the construction of a sound abatement wall and damages. The Superior Court dismissed the class action. Although it recognized that there was a neighbour relationship between the Ministère des Transports and the group members and that certain residents had suffered abnormal and excessive annoyances, it found that the rule that the Crown has relative immunity protected the government from civil liability actions arising from policy decisions. The Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal. It held that the rule that the Crown has relative immunity applied under art. 976 C.C.Q. and that the government could claim that immunity if it contravened the Environment Quality Act, CQLR, c. Q 2, or interfered unlawfully with a right recognized by the Charter of human rights and freedoms. It also held that the fact that Quebec’s Ministère des Transports had not taken noise abatement measures was a core policy decision for which the government was protected from legal action.