Godbout v. Pagé

Godbout v. Pagé
Collection
Supreme Court Judgments
Date
2017-03-24
Neutral citation
2017 SCC 18
Report
[2017] 1 SCR 283
Case number
36385, 36388
Judges
McLachlin, Beverley; Abella, Rosalie Silberman; Karakatsanis, Andromache; Wagner, Richard; Gascon, Clément; Côté, Suzanne; Brown, Russell
On appeal from
Quebec
Notes
SCC Case Information: 36385, 36388
Decision Content
SUPREME COURT OF CANADA
Citation: Godbout v. Pagé, 2017 SCC 18, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 283
Appeals heard: October 6, 2016
Judgment rendered: March 24, 2017
Dockets: 36385, 36388
Between:
Thérèse Godbout,
Louis Godbout and Iris Godbout
Appellants
and
Jean-Maurice Pagé, Anick Dulong,
Moreno Morelli, Martin Lavigne, Jacques Toueg and
Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal
Respondents
- and -
Attorney General of Quebec and
Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec
Interveners
And between:
Gilles Gargantiel
Appellant
and
Attorney General of Quebec
Respondent
- and -
Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec
Intervener
Official English Translation
Coram: McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon, Côté and Brown JJ.
Reasons for Judgment:
(paras. 1 to 78)
Wagner J. (McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Karakatsanis, Gascon and Brown JJ. concurring)
Dissenting reasons:
(paras. 79 to 160)
Côté J.
Godbout v. Pagé, 2017 SCC 18, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 283
Thérèse Godbout,
Louis Godbout and Iris Godbout Appellants
v.
Jean‑Maurice Pagé, Anick Dulong,
Moreno Morelli, Martin Lavigne, Jacques Toueg and
Hôpital du Sacré‑Cœur de Montréal Respondents
and
Attorney General of Quebec and
Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec Interveners
‑ and ‑
Gilles Gargantiel Appellant
v.
Attorney General of Quebec Respondent
and
Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec Intervener
Indexed as: Godbout v. Pagé
2017 SCC 18
File Nos.: 36385, 36388.
2016: October 6; 2017: March 24.
Present: McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon, Côté and Brown JJ.
on appeal from the court of appeal for quebec
Insurance — Automobile insurance — Bodily injury — No‑fault public automobile insurance scheme — Automobile accident causing injury — Victims suffering aggravated or separate injuries because of subsequent faults attributable to third parties — Whether bodily injuries suffered by victims were “suffered . . . in an accident” within meaning of Automobile Insurance Act — Type of causal link required in case of subsequent fault committed by third party — Whether civil action against third parties in question is barred by application of public compensation scheme — Automobile Insurance Act, CQLR, c. A‑25, ss. 1 “accident”, “damage caused by an automobile”, 83.57.
TG and GG were seriously injured in automobile accidents. Insofar as the alleged facts are assumed to be true, they subsequently suffered additional injuries because of faults attributable to third parties. These third parties were, in TG’s case, the medical staff who treated the injuries she had suffered in the accident and, in GG’s case, Sûreté du Québec officers who were allegedly negligent in searching for the crashed vehicle he was in. TG and GG have since been compensated for the whole of their injuries by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (“SAAQ”) under the Automobile Insurance Act (“Act”). However, they are seeking to bring actions in damages against the third parties in question for subsequent faults that caused them aggravated or separate bodily injury.
In the case of the appeal concerning TG, the parties jointly submitted to the Superior Court the question whether s. 83.57 of the Act has the effect of barring any civil action against a third party in respect of a fault that was committed subsequently to an automobile accident and that caused a separate injury. The Superior Court found that such an action was admissible provided that the existence of a separate fault and a separate injury could be proved. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside the Superior Court’s decision on the basis that s. 83.57 barred a civil action against the third parties in question.
In the case of the appeal concerning GG, the third parties in question asked for the dismissal of the action under art. 165(4) of the former Code of Civil Procedure. The Superior Court granted the motion and dismissed the action on the basis that the prohibition against civil actions set out in s. 83.57 of the Act applied. In a decision rendered the same day as its decision concerning TG, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Superior Court’s decision.
Held (Côté J. dissenting): The appeals should be dismissed.
Per McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon and Brown JJ.: The question in the appeals is whether a person injured in an automobile accident who is eligible to receive compensation under the Act but whose condition is aggravated as a result of a fault committed by a third party can bring a civil action against the third party to seek compensation for bodily injury resulting from that subsequent fault. The question arises because the Act provides that, where bodily injury was “suffered . . . in an accident” (“causé dans un accident” in the French version of the Act), that is, “any event in which damage is caused by an automobile”, the compensation the victim can receive is limited exclusively to amounts paid by the SAAQ regardless of who is at fault. Moreover, s. 83.57 states that such compensation “stands in lieu of all rights and remedies by reason of bodily injury and no action in that respect shall be admitted before any court of justice”.
The difficulty in construing the word “causé” (caused) used in the French version of the Act in the context of the specific scheme of the Act stems mainly from its evocation of conceptions of causation that apply in the law of civil liability under the Civil Code of Québec. In light of the context of the enactment of the Act and the legislature’s intent, on the one hand, and the principles applicable to the interpretation of the Act, on the other, the appropriate causal link in the context of the compensation scheme established by the Act cannot be the same as or be derived from the one that prevails in the general law of civil liability: it is sui generis in nature. It must be given a large and liberal interpretation that will further the Act’s purpose, although that interpretation must also be plausible and logical. Whether such a link exists is primarily a question of logic and fact, and depends on the circumstances of each case. The appropriate causal link in the context of the Act is of course not as strong as the one that applies in the law of civil liability. We must therefore refrain from borrowing from concepts associated with the traditional form of causality, such as the distinction between the occasion and cause of the injury. For the purposes of the Act, it will be enough to establish a sufficiently close link between the bodily injury and the automobile accident; in contrast, a fortuitous connection will not suffice.
The Act was enacted nearly 40 years ago to address the serious inequities then occurring in the compensation of victims for bodily injuries caused by automobiles. It was rooted in a societal choice that reflected a social compromise by which all drivers were to collectively assume the financial consequences of bodily injuries caused by automobile accidents. Any civil action with respect to such injuries has been prohibited since that time. As the legislature intended, an automobile accident victim who suffers bodily injury in the accident and as a result of events subsequent to the accident — related, for example, to care or treatment provided after the accident or to the acts of first responders (police officers, ambulance attendants, etc.) at the scene of the accident — need not identify someone who has committed a fault, is guilty or can be blamed for the aggravation or a separate part of his or her injury. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that the victim need not engage in costly and uncertain court proceedings in order to obtain compensation for the whole of his or her injury.
The Act confers civil immunity on everyone in respect of injuries suffered in automobile accidents, and this immunity applies with no exceptions. Provided that there is a plausible, logical and sufficiently close link between, on the one hand, the automobile accident and the subsequent events (in the context of these appeals, the fault of a third party) and, on the other hand, the resulting injury, the Act will cover the whole of the injury, and the immunity it confers will apply. Thus, the fact that the injury in question has an aggravated or separate aspect that can be attributed to events that occurred subsequently to the automobile accident is immaterial: those events will be deemed to be part of the accident, and therefore of the cause of the whole of the injury.
In these cases, the additional bodily injury suffered by TG and by GG is an injury “suffered . . . in an accident” within the meaning of the Act. It originated in a series of events that have a plausible, logical and sufficiently close link to one another and have, in each case, the automobile accident as their starting point. The causal link under the Act is established regardless of the fact that the accident and the fault alleged against the third parties in question did not occur at the same time or in the same place. As a result, TG and GG are entitled to the compensation provided for in the Act but, because of s. 83.57 of the Act, are not entitled to bring further civil liability proceedings against the third parties in order to obtain additional or complementary compensation.
Finally, on the alternative issue, the acceptance of the compensation payments received from the SAAQ does not in itself bar any claim for damages from anyone in addition to or in lieu of that compensation on the basis that it entails a presumption of waiver of the right to bring an action against a third party. In the civil law, waiver (or renunciation) is either express or tacit. Moreover, whether there has been a waiver is very much a fact‑based question that depends, inter alia, on the intention of the waiving party. Evidence of that intention must be presented and analyzed before a waiver can be found to have occurred. No such intention has been proven in these cases, as they have not yet gone to trial, which means that it has not been possible to assess any evidence of the intention of TG or that of GG.
Per Côté J. (dissenting): It was not open to the Court of Appeal to determine whether the injuries alleged by TG and GG in these cases were aggravated, as opposed to separate, injuries. An aggravated injury is very different from a separate injury caused by a fault subsequent to a first event. The fact that these cases concern separate injuries is admitted, as is — for the purposes of these appeals — the fact that the alleged faults were subsequent to the accidents.
Each time there is a separate injury, the court cannot conclude that an action is barred without first determining whether the injury in question was “suffered . . . in an accident”. The wording and purpose of the Act, together with the context in which it was enacted and the legislative intent, support the conclusion that it is necessary in each case to determine whether the Act applies to the separate injury at issue. A large and liberal interpretation is necessary in the determination of whether bodily injury was suffered in an accident. However, such a large and liberal interpretation of the Act in combination with the sui generis nature of the causal link cannot have the effect of making the scope of the Act so broad that the issue of causation becomes totally irrelevant. It is wrong to conclude that the sui generis nature of causation in the context of the Act’s compensation scheme necessarily implies that the initial chain of causation can never be broken by a new fact that causes a separate injury.
No interpretation can be found to be plausible and logical if it leads to the conclusion that a medical or other fault subsequent to an accident is considered to occur “in an accident” simply because it has a link to that accident. Such an interpretation has the effect of linking separate and subsequent injuries to an accident that is merely the occasion of their occurrence but is not their cause. That interpretation cannot be reconciled with the words of the Act.
The only way to truly respect the legislature’s intent, which it has expressed in clear language in the Act, is to allow a civil action to be brought against a third party who committed a fault subsequently to an automobile accident and caused injuries separate from those suffered in the accident itself. In other words, the prohibition of civil actions provided for in s. 83.57 of the Act does not apply in such circumstances. Section 83.57 creates an exception to the general law of civil liability, which is based on the principle of full compensation, and such an exception must be narrowly construed.
In the Act, the legislature has defined a compensable bodily injury as any physical or mental injury, including death, “suffered . . . in an accident” and has, in addition, defined an accident as “any event in which damage is caused by an automobile”. If it had wanted the scope of the compensation scheme to extend to separate injuries suffered as a result of an event subsequent to an accident (here, the subsequent fault), the legislature would have said so clearly and would thus have extended the scope of the Act to include injuries suffered “following an accident”. The words of the Act and common sense thus preclude the argument that a separate injury caused by a medical or a hospital fault — or by negligent conduct on the part of police officers — subsequent to an accident can constitute an injury that was “suffered . . . in an accident”. A medical or hospital fault, or a fault committed by police officers, does not occur in the general context of the use of a vehicle.
Such an interpretation is also mindful of the internal consistency of the Act, as it gives full meaning to s. 12.1. That provision, which contemplates the possibility of a party bringing a civil action in order to seek compensation for bodily injuries that were not “suffered . . . in an accident”, shows that a victim has a right to bring a civil action against a third party in respect of an injury that is not covered by the Act.
Road risks are what the legislature wanted to provide for in a scheme that pays compensation regardless of who is at fault. The legislature did not intend to create, nor did it in fact create, a no‑fault liability scheme for police officers, physicians or other third parties who might commit faults subsequently to automobile accidents and thereby cause separate injuries. The interpretation of the Act should not therefore produce such a result. It is up to the legislature, not the courts, to expand the coverage of the Act to other types of risks, since the application of the general law of civil liability cannot be excluded without a clear intervention on the legislature’s part. The scope of s. 83.57 of the Act is therefore limited by the wording of the section: although the Act must be interpreted liberally, this should not make it possible to extrapolate and to extend the immunity it confers to everything that relates in any way to an automobile accident.
Therefore, s. 83.57 of the Act does not bar the action in damages. Moreover, the fact that compensation has been claimed and received from the SAAQ by the victims cannot be interpreted as a waiver of any civil action. The concept of waiver does not apply within the framework of the Act. The effect of s. 83.57 of the Act is to establish a single, complete compensation scheme for the injuries the Act covers. It is the fact that damage is characterized as “bodily injury” that gives rise to a right to compensation: if the bodily injury was suffered in an accident, then the Act applies and s. 83.57 bars any action is respect of that injury in a court of civil jurisdiction. This means that an individual never has both a right to compensation under the Act and a right to take the person allegedly responsible for his or her injury to court. In short, it is impossible to waive a right that one does not have.
Cases Cited
By Wagner J.
Applied: Westmount (City) v. Rossy, 2012 SCC 30, [2012] 2 S.C.R. 136; Productions Pram inc. v. Lemay, [1992] R.J.Q. 1738; not followed: Badeaux v. Corp. intermunicipale de transport de la Rive‑sud de Québec, [1986] J.Q. no 473 (QL); Morin v. Québec (Ville de), 2009 QCCS 3202; C.S. v. Québec (Commission des affaires sociales), [1996] AZ‑51214610; Assurance Automobile — 68, [1997] C.A.S. 212; distinguished: Law, Union & Rock Insurance Co. v. Moore’s Taxi Ltd., [1960] S.C.R. 80; St‑Jean v. Mercier, S.C.C., No. 27515, January 15, 2001 (Bulletin of Proceedings, January 19, 2001, pp. 94‑95); St‑Jean v. Mercier, [1998] J.Q. no 234 (QL), aff’d [1999] R.J.Q. 1658, aff’d 2002 SCC 15, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 491; Mitchell v. Rahman, 2002 MBCA 19, 163 Man. R. (2d) 87; Amos v. Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, [1995] 3 S.C.R. 405; referred to: Canada (Attorney General) v. Confédération des syndicats nationaux, 2014 SCC 49, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 477; Béliveau St‑Jacques v. Fédération des employées et employés de services publics inc., [1996] 2 S.C.R. 345; R.C. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2007 QCTAQ 08233, 2007 CanLII 40372; G.P.P. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2004 CanLII 68602; J.W. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 1998 LNQCTAQ 1230 (QL); F.C. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2008 QCTAQ 10851, 2008 CanLII 64282, aff’d 2009 QCTAQ 09478, 2009 CanLII 54439; D.H. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2011 QCTAQ 4101, 2011 LNQCTAQ 110 (QL); M.C. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2010 QCTAQ 09161, 2010 CanLII 80613; S.F. v. Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile), 2011 QCTAQ 08760, 2011 CanLII 71337; Québec (Société de l’assurance automobile) v. Viger, [2000] R.J.Q. 2209; Chalifoux v. Québec (Commission des affaires sociales), 2003 CanLII 72168;
By Côté J. (dissenting)
Canada (Attorney General) v. Confédération des syndicats nationaux, 2014 SCC 49, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 477; Westmount (City) v. Rossy, 2012 SCC 30, [2012] 2 S.C.R. 136; Gray v. Cotic, [1983] S.C.R. 2; Productions Pram inc. v. Lemay, [1992] R.J.Q. 1738; Greenshields v. The Queen, [1958] S.C.R. 216; Canada (Attorney General) v. Xuan, [1994] 2 F.C. 348; Heritage Capital Corp. v. Equitable Trust Co., 2016 SCC 19, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 306; Jabel Image Concepts Inc. v. Minister of National Revenue (2000), 257 N.R. 193; Agraira v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2013 SCC 36, [2013] 2 S.C.R. 559; R. v. Zeolkowski, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 1378; Harris v. Cité de Verdun, [1979] C.S. 690; Cordero v. British Leyland Motors Canada Ltd., [1980] C.S. 899; Lapalme v. Mareluc Ltée, [1983] C.S. 646; Periard v. Ville de Sept‑Îles, [1985] I.L.R. ¶1‑1963; Commission des accidents de travail du Quebec, Desfonds et Larocque v. Girard (1988), 18 Q.A.C. 110; Neveu v. Compagnie d’assurance Victoria du Canada (1989), 30 Q.A.C. 97; Belley v. Tessier‑Villeneuve, [1990] R.R.A. 959; Langlois v. Dagenais, [1992] R.R.A. 489; Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership v. Rex, 2002 SCC 42, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 559; Rizzo & Rizzo Shoes Ltd. (Re), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 27; Mitchell v. Rahman, 2002 MBCA 19, 163 Man. R. (2d) 87; G.D. v. Centre de santé et des services sociaux A, 2008 QCCA 663, [2008] R.J.D.T. 663; St‑Jean v. Mercier, 2002 SCC 15, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 491.
Statutes and Regulations Cited
Act respecting industrial accidents and occupational diseases, CQLR, c. A‑3.001, ss. 438 to 447.
Act respecting the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, CQLR, c. S‑11.011, s. 2.
Automobile Insurance Act, CQLR, c. A‑25, ss. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12.1, 73, 83.44, 83.44.1, 83.57, 83.59.
Bill 67, Automobile Insurance Act, 2nd Sess., 31st Parl., 1977, s. 66 (first reading).
Bill 67, Automobile Insurance Act, 2nd Sess., 31st Parl., 1977 (assented to December 22, 1977).
Bill 113, An Act to amend the Automobile Insurance Act, 2nd Sess., 34th Parl., 1993.
Civil Code of Québec.
Code of Civil Procedure, CQLR, c. C‑25, art. 165(4), 452.
Highway Safety Code, CQLR, c. C‑24.2, s. 605.
Interpretation Act, CQLR, c. I‑16, ss. 41, 41.1, 49, 50.
Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act, C.C.S.M., c. P215, s. 73.
Revised Regulation (1984) under the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act, B.C. Reg. 447/83, art. 79 [am. 335/84, Sch., s. 19; am. 379/85, Sch., s. 31].
Authors Cited
Baudouin, Jean‑Louis, Patrice Deslauriers et Benoît Moore. La responsabilité civile, 8e éd. Cowansville, Que.: Yvon Blais, 2014.
Belleau, Claude. L’assurance automobile sans égard à la responsabilité: historique et bilan de l’expérience québécoise. Sainte‑Foy, Que.: Publications du Québec, 1998.
Côté, Pierre‑André. The Interpretation of Legislation in Canada, 2nd ed. Cowansville, Que.: Yvon Blais, 1991.
Côté, Pierre‑André, in collaboration with Stéphane Beaulac and Mathieu Devinat. The Interpretation of Legislation in Canada, 4th ed. Toronto: Carswell, 2011.
Driedger, Elmer A. Construction of Statutes, 2nd ed. Toronto: Butterworths, 1983.
Gardner, Daniel. “L’interprétation de la portée de la Loi sur l’assurance automobile: un éternel recommencement” (2011), 52 C. de D. 167.
Perreault, Janick. Assurance automobile au Québec: L’indemnisation du préjudice corporel des victimes d’accident d’automobile, 3e éd. Brossard, Que.: Publications CCH, 2010.
Pigeon, Louis‑Philippe. Drafting and Interpreting Legislation, Toronto: Carswell, 1988.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Commission permanente de l’aménagement et des équipements. “Étude détaillée du projet de loi 113 — Loi modifiant la Loi sur l’assurance automobile”, Journal des débats de la Commission permanente de l’aménagement et des équipements, vol. 32, no 102, 2e sess., 34e lég., 24 novembre 1993, p. 5369.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Commission permanente des consommateurs, coopératives et institutions financières. “Étude du projet de loi no 67 — Loi sur l’assurance automobile”, Journal des débats de la Commission permanente des consommateurs, coopératives et institutions financières, vol. 19, no 210, 2e sess., 31e lég., 20 octobre 1977, p. 6493.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Commission permanente des consommateurs, coopératives et institutions financières. “Mémoire de la Corporation professionnelle des médecins du Québec à la Commission parlementaire sur le Projet de Loi 67 Loi sur l’assurance automobile”, Journal des débats de la Commission permanente des consommateurs, coopératives et institutions financières, vol. 19, no 210, 2e sess., 31e lég., 20 octobre 1977, annexe II, p. 6539.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Journal des débats, vol. 19, no 96, 2e sess., 31e lég., 19 août 1977, p. 3093.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Journal des débats, vol. 19, no 109, 2e sess., 31e lég., 28 octobre 1977, p. 3786‑3787.
Quebec. Assemblée nationale. Journal des débats, vol. 19, no 136, 2e sess., 31e lég., 20 décembre 1977, p. 5047.
Tétrault, Robert. “L’appréciation du lien de causalité entre le préjudice corporel et le fait accidentel dans le cadre de la Loi sur l’assurance automobile” (1998‑99), 29 R.D.U.S. 245.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Pelletier, St‑Pierre and Gagnon JJ.A.), 2015 QCCA 225, 18 C.C.L.T. (4th) 42, [2015] AZ‑51147750, [2015] J.Q. no 664 (QL), 2015 CarswellQue 646 (WL Can.), setting aside a decision of Roy J., 2013 QCCS 4866, [2013] AZ‑51008567, [2013] J.Q. no 13389 (QL), 2013 CarswellQue 10187 (WL Can.). Appeal dismissed, Côté J. dissenting.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Pelletier, St‑Pierre and Gagnon JJ.A.), 2015 QCCA 224, [2015] AZ‑51147749, [2015] J.Q. no 662 (QL), 2015 CarswellQue 647 (WL Can.), affirming a decision of Mayer J., 2013 QCCS 1888, [2013] AZ‑50962709, [2013] J.Q. no 4584 (QL), 2013 CarswellQue 4255 (WL Can.). Appeal dismissed, Côté J. dissenting.
Jean‑Pierre Ménard, Marie‑Ève Martineau and Karine Tremblay, for the appellants Thérèse Godbout, Louis Godbout and Iris Godbout.
Marc Dufour and David Emmanuel Roberge, for the respondent Jean‑Maurice Pagé.
Mark Phillips and Émilie Jutras, for the respondents Anick Dulong, Moreno Morelli, Martin Lavigne, Jacques Toueg and Hôpital du Sacré‑Cœur de Montréal.
Andrew Kliger and Leonard Kliger, for the appellant Gilles Gargantiel.
Louise Comtois and Alexandra Hodder, for the respondent/intervener the Attorney General of Quebec.
Julien Gaudet‑Lachapelle and Manon Paquin, for the intervener Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec.
English version of the judgment of McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon and Brown JJ. delivered by
Wagner J. —
I. Overview
[1] The Automobile Insurance Act, CQLR, c. A‑25 (“Act”), came into force in 1978. It changed an entire aspect of the scheme of civil liability in Quebec law by creating new rules applicable to automobile‑related accidents, including to the compensation payable for both property damage and bodily injury that result from them.
[2] Since the Act was enacted, the courts have had many occasions to rule on the scope of those rules.
[3] These appeals represent an opportunity for this Court to review the principles that govern the application of the Act, and in particular those with respect to compensation for bodily injury in the case of faults committed by third parties.
[4] The basic question in the appeals is whether a person injured in an automobile accident who is eligible to receive compensation under the Act but whose condition is aggravated as a result of a fault committed by a third party can bring a civil action against the third party to seek compensation for bodily injury resulting from that subsequent fault. In other words, the Court must determine the scope of the no‑fault scheme under which compensation is paid in respect of bodily injury “suffered . . . in an accident” within the meaning of the Act. It must at the same time rule on the corollary to that scheme, namely the prohibition against any civil action where compensation is paid under the Act in respect of the injury in question (s. 83.57 of the Act).
[5] The appeals concern events that forever altered the lives of the appellants Thérèse Godbout and Gilles Gargantiel, who were seriously injured in automobile accidents. Insofar as the alleged facts are assumed to be true, these two appellants subsequently suffered additional injuries because of faults attributable to third parties, namely the respondents. These third parties were, in Ms. Godbout’s case, the medical staff who treated the injuries she had suffered in the accident and, in Mr. Gargantiel’s case, Sûreté du Québec (“SQ”) officers who were allegedly negligent in searching for the crashed vehicle he was in. Ms. Godbout and Mr. Gargantiel have since been compensated for the whole of their injuries by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (“SAAQ”) under the Act. However, they are seeking reparation for the injuries caused by the respondents’ faults. The parties are thus asking the Court to determine whether the appellants can, despite having been paid compensation under the Act, bring actions against the respondents for subsequent faults that caused them bodily injury. The question arises because the Act provides that, where bodily injury was “suffered . . . in an accident”, that is, “any event in which damage is caused by an automobile”, the compensation the victim can receive is limited exclusively to amounts paid by the SAAQ regardless of who is at fault (ss. 1, 2, 5 and 83.57 of the Act).
[6] For the reasons that follow, I am of the view that the additional bodily injury suffered by Ms. Godbout and by Mr. Gargantiel, for which they are seeking reparation from the respondents, is an injury “suffered . . . in an accident” within the meaning of the Act. As a result, they are entitled to the compensation provided for in the Act but are not entitled to bring further civil liability proceedings against the respondents in order to obtain additional or complementary compensation. I would therefore dismiss the appeals.
II. Facts
[7] The facts in the first appeal date back to January 10, 1999, when Ms. Godbout was seriously injured in an automobile accident. She was taken to and treated at Hôpital du Sacré‑Cœur de Montréal, where the respondents practised, one as an orthopaedic surgeon and the others as orthopaedic surgery residents. Fractures of both femurs, both tibias and the right tibial plateau were diagnosed and Ms. Godbout was operated on. A few days later, advanced compartment syndrome was observed together with muscle compartment necrosis. On February 20, 1999, Ms. Godbout had both legs amputated at the knees. In January 2002, she and the other appellants in her case filed a motion to institute proceedings. In those proceedings, she alleged that the respondents had failed to act in accordance with good practice in treating her and had thereby caused separate injuries that had not been suffered in the automobile accident but had instead been caused by the respondents’ faults. More specifically, Ms. Godbout argued that they had committed faults in diagnosis and in medical treatment and follow‑up in her case and that those faults were the direct causes of the amputation of her legs and of a permanent neurological impairment of her right hand. Even though she had received compensation from the SAAQ after the automobile accident for the whole of her bodily injury, she argued that she was entitled to additional compensation for the separate injuries resulting from the respondents’ faults. Her younger brother, Louis Godbout, and her only daughter, Iris Godbout, also claimed damages from the medical staff for injuries caused to them by the same faults.
[8] On October 18, 2009, the appellant in the second appeal, Mr. Gargantiel, lost control of his automobile and was then lying unconscious in a ditch between the road and a railway track. Even though the OnStar company, having located Mr. Gargantiel’s vehicle by satellite, contacted the SQ’s call management centre several times and provided it with the GPS coordinates of the crashed vehicle, SQ officers were unable to locate it and decided to give up the search. More than 40 hours after the accident, the automobile was found by chance by a railway worker near the location indicated by the GPS coordinates OnStar had provided to the SQ. Mr. Gargantiel was found nearby with severe hypothermia and other serious bodily injuries. Part of his right leg had to be amputated as a result of frostbite. Following the accident, he received compensation from the SAAQ for the whole of his bodily injury. He nonetheless claimed damages from the Attorney General of Quebec (“AGQ”) for injuries linked to the negligence of the SQ officers who had participated in the search for his car, namely the partial amputation of his right leg and the resulting physical and psychological damage.
[9] It is common ground that the question whether the actions brought by the appellants against the respondents in the two appeals are barred must be decided first having regard to the Act’s provisions. As a result, the alleged facts with regard to the accidents, injuries and faults are assumed to be true.
III. Judicial History
A. Godbout
(1) Superior Court, 2013 QCCS 4866
[10] Roy J. of the Superior Court held that the appellants had a right to sue the respondents, provided that they could prove the existence of a separate fault and a separate injury. In reaching this conclusion, Roy J. considered herself bound by the wording of the question posed jointly by the parties, which read as follows: [translation] “If the Court were to conclude that the defendants committed a medical fault while the plaintiff was hospitalized subsequently to the automobile accident and that that medical fault caused separate injuries, would section 83.57 of Quebec’s Automobile Insurance Act bar the plaintiffs’ action in damages?” It was therefore that specific question that Roy J. was answering hypothetically. Roy J. had to rule on this point without having heard any evidence, and she stressed, in addition, how difficult it would be for the appellants, if allowed to do so, to prove the existence of a separate fault and an injury separate from the one “caused by the accident” (para. 43 (CanLII)). She added that the fact that the appellants had received compensation from the SAAQ did not in itself mean that they had waived their right to sue the respondents in civil liability.
[11] Roy J. began by analyzing the relevant provisions of the Act and found no intention on the legislature’s part to exclude from the general law of civil liability cases in which a separate injury is caused by a fault committed by a third party subsequently to an automobile accident. After reviewing the case law, she noted that there are no cases either on the possibility of suing a third party who was responsible for a separate fault that caused a separate injury or on the scope of the prohibition against civil actions set out in s. 83.57 of the Act. In the absence of any final judgment to the effect that a third party cannot be sued for a fault and an injury separate from those committed and suffered at the time of the automobile accident, Roy J. held that s. 83.57 of the Act does not preclude such an action.
(2) Court of Appeal, 2015 QCCA 225
[12] St‑Pierre J.A., who wrote the unanimous reasons of the Quebec Court of Appeal, allowed the appeal and set aside the trial judge’s decision. She concluded that s. 83.57 of the Act barred the appellants’ action in damages regardless of whether a subsequent medical fault and a separate injury caused by that fault were to be proved. In her opinion, this conclusion, which she described as plausible and logical, was preferable to accepting a breach in the no‑fault compensation scheme provided for in the Act. Such a breach could weaken the scheme and the protection it confers on victims of automobile accidents, as the SAAQ might then refuse to compensate victims who have received medical care if that care aggravated or may have aggravated their bodily injury.
[13] Before arriving at that conclusion, St‑Pierre J.A. summarized the legal principles that apply in this area of the law, stressing that, [translation] “if importing a concept of causation originating in the law of civil liability into the [Act] could have effects or consequences that might frustrate its primary purpose, that cannot be proposed, tolerated or accepted” (para. 51 (CanLII)). With this in mind, she was of the opinion that the trial judge had erred in applying the intervening cause (“novus actus interveniens”) doctrine to hold that s. 83.57 of the Act did not apply. St‑Pierre J.A. explained that the conditions for applying that doctrine were not met even though the alleged facts were assumed to be true. She noted that the doctrine “applies only if two essential criteria are met ― (1) a total break in the chain of causation and (2) the establishment of a new chain based on an act that is not directly related to the initial fault” (para. 60). In St‑Pierre J.A.’s view, the alleged facts did not support a finding that there was no longer any link between the automobile accident and the injury in question or that a new link had come to exist because of inadequate medical treatment unrelated to the accident. In short, although the medical care at issue may have resulted in a medical fault, it had been provided in connection with the automobile accident for the purpose of treating the injury suffered in that accident. At issue in this case is, at most, an “aggravated injury” or “contributory fault”, not a “separate” injury. Yet such concepts are irrelevant in the context of a no‑fault compensation scheme such as that of the Act. Any automobile accident victim is thus compensated under the Act for the whole of his or her bodily injury and is barred from bringing an action in civil liability against a third party if that party has in fact committed a fault.
[14] St‑Pierre J.A. also commented on the subject of waiver of the right to bring an action, although she acknowledged that it might not be necessary to rule on this ground of appeal. In any event, she concluded that where compensation payments are claimed, received and accepted, as Ms. Godbout did, there is a rebuttable presumption that she and the SAAQ recognize that the compensation scheme under the Act applies and that any other action is accordingly barred by law.
B. Gargantiel
(1) Superior Court, 2013 QCCS 1888
[15] Mayer J. of the Superior Court granted the AGQ’s motion to dismiss, finding that causation is given a large and liberal interpretation in the context of the Act and that the intervening cause doctrine was therefore not relevant. In his view, this finding flowed in particular from a number of decisions of the Administrative Tribunal of Québec (“ATQ”), which he summarized as follows: [translation] “. . . the SAAQ must provide compensation, in accordance with the principles set out in the Act, for any bodily injury suffered by a victim of an automobile accident either in the accident itself or while the injuries suffered in the accident are healing, regardless of whether the injury in question results directly from the original injuries, from the treatment received, from any complications that may result from that treatment, from a fortuitous event or even from the fault of a third party who is involved in the above” (para. 54; see also para. 68 to the same effect (CanLII)). Mayer J. noted that when the Act applies, it operates exclusively, even where a separate fault can be attributed to a third party. In this case, because the alleged fault of the SQ officers had been committed only after Mr. Gargantiel’s automobile accident, the whole of the resulting injury was covered by the Act and the prohibition against civil actions applied. In Mayer J.’s opinion, Mr. Gargantiel’s acceptance of the compensation paid by the SAAQ for the whole of his bodily injury entailed a waiver of any action against any person in respect of any injury that resulted from the automobile accident.
(2) Court of Appeal, 2015 QCCA 224
[16] The Court of Appeal, per St‑Pierre J.A. in this case, too, dismissed the appeal on the basis that Mr. Gargantiel’s two grounds of appeal were without merit. On the first ground, which had to do with the analysis of causation and of the application of the intervening cause doctrine, St‑Pierre J.A. disagreed with Mr. Gargantiel’s arguments for the following three reasons:
1. Intervening cause is linked to the traditional civil law approach to causation, which must be disregarded when applying the provisions of the Act;
2. Even if the intervening cause doctrine were considered, the facts of the case would, in any event, not lead to the result advocated by Mr. Gargantiel;
3. The amputation and the injuries related to it clearly constituted bodily injury for which compensation could be paid under the Act, so that compensation stood in lieu of all rights and remedies.
[17] St‑Pierre J.A. reviewed the facts of Gargantiel from the standpoint of causation. She noted that, although the injury suffered by Mr. Gargantiel may have been aggravated by the SQ officers’ fault, it could not be said that that injury was unrelated to the automobile accident: the injury he suffered resulted from a combination ― or continuum ― of events that were directly related to the accident and were inseparable from one another. St‑Pierre J.A. accordingly concluded that the frostbite and subsequent amputation constituted an injury [translation] “suffered in the accident” within the meaning of the Act (para. 41 (CanLII)).
[18] On the second ground of appeal with respect to waiver of the ri