Case information

Civil procedure — Appeal — Appeal with leave or as of right — Action dismissed because of its abusive nature — Doctrine of abuse of procedure — Whether art. 30 para. 2(3) of Code of Civil Procedure allows Quebec Court of Appeal to make right of appeal subject to leave when operative part of trial judgment clearly stated that judicial application was being dismissed for another reason than its abusive nature, even though judgment also found application to be abusive pursuant to doctrine of abuse of procedure or combination of that doctrine with arts. 18 and 51 of Code of Civil Procedure — Whether “doctrine of abuse of procedure” allows civil court: (1) to refuse to decide issues before it in action for damages brought by individual against person who was not party to penal proceedings against individual, even though court of penal jurisdiction did not rule on civil faults alleged by individual against that third party and expressly stated in its judgment that it was not dealing with that third party’s conduct; (2) to refuse to reopen issue already decided by court of penal jurisdiction in action for damages brought by individual against person who was not party to penal proceedings against individual, where court of penal jurisdiction expressly stated in its judgment that it was not deciding issue on basis of civil law standards and principles and from perspective of duties and responsibilities established in civil law; (3) to refuse to reopen issue already decided in final judgment of court of penal jurisdiction in action for damages brought by individual against person who was not party to penal proceedings against individual, where individual affected by that refusal had no reason to appeal that judgment, which stayed penal proceedings against him — Code of Civil Procedure, CQLR, c. C 25.01, art. 30.

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The applicant, Karl Talbot, is the former president of a company that took steps to regularize its situation with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). This led to a penal investigation and to the issuance by the AMF in June 2012 of statements of offence against Karl Talbot containing 107 counts for contraventions of certain provisions of the Securities Act, CQLR, c. V 1.1. In December 2016, after 33 days of hearing, the Court of Québec granted Karl Talbot’s motion for non suit and for a stay of proceedings on the ground that the charges were prescribed. However, the court found that Karl Talbot had failed to establish abuse of procedure by the AMF. In October 2017, Karl Talbot brought a civil action for damages against the AMF, the respondent, Sébastien Talbot, the intervener, Jean François Welch, and the AMF’s investigators and outside counsel. In July 2018, on a motion by the AMF’s investigators and outside counsel to dismiss the action for abuse of procedure, the Superior Court found that the action constituted an abuse of procedure, mainly because it was based entirely on the record of evidence and arguments filed in the Court of Québec, which had failed to establish abuse of procedure by the AMF in the penal proceedings. Sébastien Talbot in turn applied to have the civil action declared an abuse of procedure and dismissed. At the hearing, he also raised orally, through his counsel, the failure to set down the application in a timely manner and argued that Karl Talbot was therefore deemed under art. 177 C.C.P. to have discontinued his application. The Superior Court dismissed Karl Talbot’s oral application to be relieved from the failure to set down the application against the defendant within the time limit. It also declared that the application to dismiss for abuse of procedure was well founded, and it granted that application for the purpose of awarding legal costs to Sébastien Talbot. The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion de bene esse for leave to appeal and denied leave to appeal.