<\/p>\n
With article 342 of the Code of civil procedure<\/i> [CCP], a Court can now remedy \u201csubstantial breaches\u201d in the conduct of a proceeding by ordering the faulty party to pay to its opponent a fair and reasonable amount as compensation for its lawyer\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n
In the recent decision Hotel Ruby Foo\u2019s inc. c. 9149-0417 Qu\u00e9bec inc.<\/em>\u00a0(2017 QCCQ 658, <https:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/gxk7q<\/a>>), the Court went so far as to order the defendant to refund all the lawyers\u2019 fees incurred by the plaintiff after the defendant had dragged the proceedings without having any true defence to raise.<\/p>\n A lessor was suing its tenant for two months of unpaid rent under a commercial lease. The tenant was alleging that a flood justified withholding the payment. The day before the trial, the defendant admitted, through its lawyer, that it had no defence to raise; accordingly, it did not show up at the hearing.<\/p>\n This belated admission was the latest in a series of dilatory tactics that the Court strongly condemned:<\/p>\n As the judge summed up, these schemes and conduct of the defendant and its counsel included:<\/p>\n One important fact to note: the lease provided that the tenant was liable for \u201creasonable\u201d legal fees incurred by the lessor to assert its rights. That provision, in addition to article 342 CCP, was used by the judge to condemn the defendant to pay all the legal costs and lawyers\u2019 fees paid by the plaintiff.<\/p>\n To conclude, this provision of the Code of civil procedure is an effective tool that the parties to a lawsuit should not hesitate to use to deter obsolete strategies attempting to bog down legal proceedings.<\/p>\n The author was representing the plaintiff in this case.<\/em><\/strong> With article 342 of the Code of civil procedure [CCP], a Court can now remedy \u201csubstantial breaches\u201d in the conduct of a proceeding by ordering the faulty party to pay to its opponent a fair and reasonable amount as compensation for its lawyer\u2019s fees. In the recent decision Hotel Ruby Foo\u2019s inc. c. 9149-0417 Qu\u00e9bec […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-and-commercial-litigation-en","category-bulletins-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n <\/p>\n […] these schemes and this conduct are detrimental to the proper administration of justice and are contrary to the basic principles of the Code of civil procedure<\/em> that focus on the prompt, fair, simple, balanced and economic application of procedural rules and the exercise of the parties\u2019 rights in a spirit of cooperation. [Our translation]\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n \n
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"