Expert Witness Problems: Contingency Fees, the Treating Physician, and Expert Immunity

Overview

The previous note established that a medical liability claim in Quebec almost always rests on expert evidence (preuve d'expertise), and that the expert witness (témoin expert) owes a primary duty to the court rather than to the party paying the fee. That duty is easier to state than to secure. Experts are chosen and paid by one side, some testify almost exclusively for plaintiffs or for defendants, and a may be the only qualified specialist available. This note examines the procedural tools the Code of Civil Procedure (Code de procédure civile, CCP) offers to contain partisanship, the way courts respond to an expert paid only if the claim succeeds, the two situations in which a treating physician appears as a witness, and the question whether an expert who writes a careless or partisan report can be sued. The last part follows the Supreme Court's decision in Roberge c. Bolduc, which holds that conformity with does not by itself exclude fault, and the case law that later confined that principle to matters of .

Learning Objectives

Describe the three responses to expert partisanship: acting for both sides, the joint expert (expertise commune) under arts. 148 and 233 CCP, and the under art. 234 CCP.
State the scope and limits of the expert's from suit.
Explain the rule in Roberge c. Bolduc and the elementary prudence limit developed in Hébert, Ter Neuzen, and Leduc c. Soccio.

Reducing Expert Partisanship

Three responses have been proposed to the problem of experts who function as advocates. The first is cultural; the second and third are procedural.

Acting for Both Plaintiffs and Defendants

The Collège des médecins du Québec, in its 2021 practice guide on expert medicine (La médecine d'expertise : guide d'exercice), invites physicians to show openness by acting as experts for different parties. An expert who has testified for both plaintiffs and defendants is harder to portray as a hired gun, though the guide states an aspiration rather than a rule.

The Joint Expert

The CCP treats the joint expert as an option that must be considered in every case. Article 148 CCP requires the parties to cooperate in establishing the , which must address the advisability of one or more expert opinions, their nature, and, where applicable, the reasons why the parties do not intend to proceed by joint expert. Article 233 CCP provides that, where the opinion is joint, the parties determine together its parameters, the expert, the fees, and the terms of payment; failing agreement, the court decides. The joint expert may require that fees and disbursements be deposited with the court office before the report is delivered; otherwise the expert keeps an action against all parties, who are solidarily liable for the debt.

The advantages are practical: a single opinion costs less, spares the judge the arbitration of two partisan reports, and offers a measure of impartiality. In Développements Pierrefonds inc. c. Ville de Montréal, 2020 QCCA 428, the Court of Appeal acknowledged that a joint expert limits a party's ability to challenge the resulting work, but noted that the constraint falls equally on both sides and that the legislature deliberately gave the case-management judge the power to impose it in the name of cost and efficiency.

The Court of Appeal has nonetheless drawn a firm limit for technical litigation. In Webasto c. Transport TFI 6, 2019 QCCA 342, the court adopted the view of the author Geneviève Cotnam, since appointed to the court, that where the expert question is highly technical or divides several schools of thought, the judge benefits from hearing the experts retained by each party. The more complex the file, the more experts on both sides are justified. Imposing a joint expert in such a case risks transferring to the expert the burden of deciding the dispute in the judge's place. St-Louis c. La Presse ltée, 2021 QCCA 1782, adds that the parties must take their position on joint expertise in writing at the case protocol stage.

Medical liability falls within the exception: the course material records that joint expert opinions do not occur in practice in medical liability litigation, where the questions are technical and the schools of thought real.

The Court-Appointed Expert and Expert Conferencing

Article 234 CCP allows the court, at any stage and even on its own initiative, to order an expert opinion by one or more qualified persons it designates where it considers the opinion necessary to decide the dispute. The court defines the mission, gives the necessary instructions, sets the deadline, and rules on fees. The course material notes only that the power exists; it offers a corrective when party experts have left the court without a usable basis for decision.

A softer technique is , informally called "hot-tubbing." Once the reports are exchanged, the experts are encouraged to confer and to agree on as many data points as possible, so that the hearing concentrates on genuine disagreement.

Payment of the Expert Contingent on the Result

An expert who agrees to be paid only if the retaining party wins has a financial stake in the outcome, and disinterest is precisely what the court expects. Quebec courts have nonetheless refused to adopt a rule of automatic exclusion.

In Trudeau c. Pellemans, 2006 QCCS 199, the plaintiff's expert, Dr Bossé, admitted on cross-examination that he would be paid only if the plaintiff succeeded, and defence counsel added that over fifteen years he had testified in 58 plaintiff files and only 2 defence files. Justice Trahan accepted that the question was serious, since it touched the impartiality and independence of the expert and therefore the integrity of the administration of justice. The expert explained that he charged full fees when plaintiffs could afford them and waived payment for those who could not, since without him they could not assert their rights. The court found a man of independent mind, motivated by social commitment rather than gain, described his testimony as pro bono work, and held that the arrangement affected neither his credibility nor the probative value of his evidence. The 58-to-2 ratio did not necessarily establish bias; each case turns on its own facts.

Fillion c. Cantin, 2012 QCCS 2666, was more guarded. Waiving fees for humanitarian reasons if the claim failed was commendable, but accepting payment only on a favourable judgment could affect credibility, as the authors Martin Dallaire and Pierre Lortie (since appointed judges) had warned. The court noted that Justice Trahan had seen no objection after questioning the expert on his motives, and concluded that everything depends on how the expert testifies. The expert is there to enlighten the court, not to defend a cause, however sympathetic.

The two decisions yield a working rule: a has not been treated as a ground for rejecting the expertise outright but as a fact bearing on credibility and probative value, to be raised in cross-examination and assessed together with the whole of the expert's conduct, including the tone of the report, the concessions made, and the treatment of contrary data.

The Treating Physician as Witness

The treating physician knows the patient, holds confidential information, has often made the very diagnosis the litigation puts in issue, and may be the only specialist in the province able to give an opinion. Two situations must be distinguished.

The Physician Testifies for the Patient

The Collège des médecins guide counsels prudence. A physician who acts as expert for a patient must preserve the therapeutic relationship and respect (secret professionnel) covering everything exchanged within it. The guide therefore recommends a duty of reserve: the physician should limit disclosure to what the expert mandate strictly requires and protect the confidentiality of everything else gathered in the course of treatment.

Véronneau c. Girouard, 2021 QCCS 1704, shows how courts handle the objection. The defendants challenged the ability of Dr Shevell to act as the plaintiffs' expert because he was also the child's treating physician, having seen the child eight times since birth. They cited an article by the expert himself on the incompatibility of the two roles and argued that he had an interest in confirming his own initial diagnosis, made without the placental pathology report. The expert answered that he saw a thousand families a year and would not have recognized the child or the parents.

The court reasoned in three steps. The general preference for keeping the roles separate does not mean that bias necessarily exists. The very small number of specialists in Quebec able to act in the relevant field obliges the court to contemplate the double role so as not to prejudice the child unduly. The situation was not ideal, but the plaintiffs had a very limited choice of qualified experts, and the reports and testimony showed neither complaisance nor a defence of the expert's own interests. The physician was allowed to act.

The Physician Testifies Against the Patient

The reverse situation raises a direct ethical prohibition. Article 66 of the Code of ethics of physicians (Code de déontologie des médecins) provides that a physician must, subject to existing legislation, refrain from acting as a physician on behalf of a third party in litigation against the physician's own patient. The Collège guide explains the rule by the need to preserve the therapeutic bond: except in exceptional situations, the treating physician must avoid acting as evaluator or expert in litigation involving the patient, a role incompatible both with the objectivity sought in an expert opinion and with a sound therapeutic relationship. The concern is twofold: the patient's confidential information, and the opposing party's right to a full defence, which may require that information.

Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine c. A.P., 2022 QCCS 4033, affirmed by 2023 QCCA 58, applies the rule in a hard case. A five-year-old child lay in a deep coma after a prolonged cardiac arrest. The hospital applied for authorization to remove the endotracheal tube and provide only minimal care afterwards, a manoeuvre likely to cause death; the parents opposed. The hospital asked to call Dr Toledano, the treating physician and author of the care plan, as an expert in paediatric intensive care, and the parents objected that a treating physician lacked the required independence and that the Code of ethics and the guide prohibited the testimony.

The court declined to follow that reasoning. Whether an expert may testify despite an interest in the litigation or a relationship with a party depends on the importance of that interest and on the facts, and the notion of an appearance of bias is irrelevant at this stage. The question is whether the expert's relationship with a party or interest in the outcome means the expert cannot or will not provide fair, objective, and impartial assistance to the court. The Code of ethics and the guide are not insurmountable obstacles in circumstances such as these. The course material adds that the same reasoning could apply to a treating psychiatrist in the context of a confinement order.

Read together, the two cases establish a functional test: neither the therapeutic relationship nor the ethical rule excludes the treating physician automatically, and the court asks whether the physician can and will serve the court rather than a party, weighing the availability of other experts and the content of the evidence actually given.

Expert Immunity from Suit

Whether an expert can be sued by a person injured by the report has a settled answer in Quebec: the expert enjoys a relative immunity, not an absolute one. The immunity exists so that experts can express themselves frankly without fear of a subsequent claim in damages. It is lost when the expert steps outside the mandate or fails to meet the standards of objectivity and rigour that define the role.

Audet c. Landry, J.E. 2009-1472 (C.S.), illustrates the loss of immunity. The expert characterized the conduct of the plaintiff, a friend of his, as fraud, asserting that he had claimed to have done something he had not done. The plaintiff sued, alleging that being called a fraudster had destroyed his life. The court held that the expert had gone beyond his mandate, since whether fraud occurred is for the judge to decide, and found a lack of objectivity and impartiality. The expert pleaded immunity, without success. At paragraph 65 the court described the expert as an (auxiliaire de la justice), a participant in the judicial process rather than a mere hire of one party, who must remain within the mandate and must not usurp the functions of the judge. The course material adds that counsel should have had the word removed before the report was filed. The Court of Appeal affirmed liability while reducing the award to $190,000, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused leave.

Fortier c. Lavoie, 2012 QCCA 754, extends the principle to a physician writing for a public insurer. The physician's report for the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) concluded that the claimant had no sequelae; a later SAAQ assessment found otherwise. The claimant was compensated but sued the first expert for the loss caused by the delay, and the courts found that the report did not meet the . At paragraph 12, the Court of Appeal held that no expert is needed to know that a report must be objective and rigorous, that the data reported must be accurate and relevant, and that facts casting doubt on a person's probity must be carefully verified. At paragraph 18, it added that writing an expert report with objectivity and rigour is not part of the practice of medicine; the requirement is the same for every discipline.

J.S. c. Lamontagne, 2016 QCCS 3758, affirmed by 2019 QCCA 377, shows the immunity working in the expert's favour. Two former spouses jointly mandated a psychologist to prepare a psychosocial assessment for their custody dispute, and one of them, a lawyer, sued the psychologist for professional fault, alleging stress, financial setbacks, and harm to her reputation. The action was dismissed. A professional incurs liability for a fault committed in performing the mandate, judged against the reasonably prudent and diligent professional in the same circumstances, under an (obligation de moyens). Because the psychologist was sued for work done as an expert, a further notion applied: the expert benefits from a relative immunity so as to speak with complete frankness. The psychologist had expressed herself fairly, professionally, and with restraint, and could not be accused of defamation merely because her findings did not present the plaintiff as favourably as she had hoped. G.C. c. Brahm, 2020 QCCS 1844, affirmed by 2021 QCCA 303, discussed below, is cited alongside it; there the expert, a psychiatrist, had wandered outside his field.

The elements can be stated as a short test:

The expert cannot be sued for an opinion honestly reached within the mandate, even if unflattering.
The immunity yields where the expert exceeds the mandate, usurps the judge's function (for example by qualifying conduct as fraud), or lacks objectivity and rigour.
The standard of objectivity and rigour is a judicial standard, common to all disciplines, which the judge may apply without expert evidence.

Worked example: the only qualified expert

A patient sues a radiologist for failing to detect a lesion on a scan. The only paediatric neuroradiologist willing to act for the patient is the specialist who has followed the child since the diagnosis, and she has agreed to waive her fee if the claim fails. The defence radiologist's report states that the plaintiff's lawyer "manipulated the images" and that the claim is "an attempt at extortion."

Under Véronneau c. Girouard and Sainte-Justine c. A.P., the treating-physician objection does not exclude the expert automatically: the court will ask whether the expert can and will assist it fairly, consider the scarcity of qualified specialists, and scrutinize the report for complaisance. Under Trudeau c. Pellemans and Fillion c. Cantin, the contingent fee is a legitimate subject of cross-examination but does not exclude the testimony. The defence expert, by contrast, has stepped outside the mandate and pronounced on questions of probity that belong to the judge. Under Audet c. Landry and Fortier c. Lavoie, those passages will be disregarded, may undermine the entire report, and expose the expert to a claim in damages that relative immunity will not defeat.

Roberge c. Bolduc and Its Aftermath

The immunity question leads to a broader one: when an expert testifies that a professional acted as all colleagues would have acted, is the court bound to conclude that no fault occurred? The Supreme Court of Canada answered in Roberge c. Bolduc, [1991] 1 SCR 374, sometimes cited as the Dorion case.

The Principles of the Decision

A prospective purchaser asked a notary to examine the vendor's titles. The notary found a defect and advised against buying. The purchaser withdrew, was sued by the vendor for damages for failing to honour the commitment to buy, and in turn called the notary into the proceedings. The notary proved by expert evidence that every notary in Quebec would have given the same advice at the time. A finding of fault would therefore condemn the practice of the entire profession, which explains why the case reached the Supreme Court.

The court accepted that the notary had acted in conformity with general notarial practice, which at the time would have found the vendor's title defective notwithstanding the judgment awarding ownership to the Caisse. It nonetheless held that following current professional practice is not enough to escape liability; the reasonableness of the practice must be capable of demonstration. The trial judge remains the final arbiter and is not bound by expert testimony. Courts have the discretionary power to assess liability even in the face of uncontradicted evidence of the practice current at the time. The standard is always that of the reasonable professional placed in the same circumstances. The fact that a professional followed the practice of peers may be strong evidence of reasonable and diligent conduct, but it is not determinative. If the practice does not conform to the general duty to act reasonably, the professional who adheres to it may incur liability according to the facts. The notary's failure to take into account the effect of (chose jugée) was a fault, even though the notary had followed the practice of the day.

The rationale is institutional. A contrary decision would have handed professions the power to define what is reasonable, whereas that assessment belongs to the courts.

Reactions of the Doctrine

The notarial profession reacted sharply. Yvan Desjardins, writing in the Revue du Notariat in 1992, argued that the Supreme Court, although it repeatedly asserted the contrary, had in substance held that an error of law necessarily constitutes a fault, thereby transforming the legal adviser's obligation of means into an obligation of result or of warranty; he described the consequence as grave, very grave. He returned to the theme in a 2007 contribution on the aftermath of the Dorion case, and P.-Y. Marquis examined the decision's consequences for notarial practice and title examination in the Cours de perfectionnement du notariat in 1992.

The Court of Appeal, in Sasseville c. Bonneville, 1991 CanLII 2780, added the converse proposition, expressed with some caution: one must probably accept that a notary who does not follow current professional practice does not thereby escape liability. Conformity with practice is neither a complete shield nor an irrelevance, and departure from it offers no shelter either.

Impact on Other Professionals

The principle migrated beyond the notariat. In Compagnie mutuelle d'assurances Wawanesa c. GMAC Location ltée, 2005 QCCA 197, the Court of Appeal held that an insurer's proof that its decision conformed to the practice of all insurers did not end the inquiry: proof of a general practice in a given milieu is not synonymous with reasonableness, and the judge must still decide.

In medical liability, Stunell c. Pelletier, [1999] R.J.Q. 2863 (C.S.), applied the same reasoning against an obstetrician-gynaecologist who had undertaken to manage a mole rather than refer the patient, with an avoidable death as the result. The defence expert's opinion that most gynaecologists would not have recorded the mole in the file did not help: if most gynaecologists had acted as the defendant had, they would have been equally at fault, and, citing Dorion c. Roberge, the reasonableness of the practice had to be demonstrated.

The Court of Appeal then checked what the course material describes as a heavy tendency to rap professionals over the knuckles. In Leduc c. Soccio, 2007 QCCA 209, an employee dismissed on the strength of a psychiatrist's report describing him as dangerous sued the psychiatrist for failing to act as a prudent and diligent psychiatrist would. The trial judge rejected both parties' expert reports and, relying on Roberge c. Bolduc, found the psychiatrist's conduct unreasonable on her own assessment. The Court of Appeal, at paragraphs 75 to 82, reversed: unlike notarial practice, which a judge can evaluate with knowledge equivalent to that of the profession, psychiatry lies outside the judge's competence, and having rejected both expert opinions the judge was left without a basis on which to define the standard. The action should have been dismissed.

The Limit of Elementary Prudence

Hébert c. Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire de Québec, Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus, 2011 QCCA 1521, refined the balance. A technologist handed the physician the wrong liquid to inject. The issue became whether the physician's failure to double-check the product, a check that practitioners generally omitted, was an unreasonable practice. The Court of Appeal, noting that Roberge c. Bolduc had opened a breach in the defensive wall facing a claimant, turned to Ter Neuzen c. Korn, 1995 CanLII 72 (SCC). At paragraph 51, the Supreme Court held that where a medical practice involves complex, scientific, or highly technical matters beyond the ordinary experience of a judge or jury, the trier of fact cannot find a common practice negligent; by exception, where a common practice lacks obvious and reasonable precautions within the grasp of an ordinary trier of fact, the practitioner who merely followed it has no excuse.

From this the Court of Appeal in Hébert drew a working presumption: what everyone does is presumed to be a reasonable practice, and a judge may go against the presumption only where an elementary norm of prudence, easily understood by a layperson, is at stake. Within that domain, common sense governs. The court concluded that the physician had committed no fault, since he had followed the practice and the practice was reasonable. Watters c. White, 2012 QCCA 257, and, in Ontario, Samms v. Moolla, 2019 ONCA 220, are to the same effect.

Deslauriers and Préville-Ratelle summarize the reconciliation in the Collection de droit 2022-2023: conformity with practice should normally exclude any reproach of negligence, and on matters of technique and the rules of the art the judge must defer, unable to draw on personal knowledge; the judge nonetheless retains full prerogatives over conduct that concerns the most elementary prudence.

The idea is older than Roberge. In G. v. C., [1960] B.R. 161, the fact that Quebec hospitals in 1950 did not count haemostatic clamps could not excuse the omission of a precaution that the most elementary prudence dictated. In Suite c. Cooke, EYB 1993-86781 (C.S.), affirmed by 1995 CanLII 4836 (QC CA), consulting the pathology report after a tubal ligation was held to be a rule of the art and the only means of confirming that the ligation succeeded; the court was troubled by evidence that the gynaecologists of one department did not systematically do so, and held the omission a fault whatever the local habit.

Two decisions close the loop with the immunity discussion. In Fortier c. Lavoie, the Court of Appeal distinguished Leduc c. Soccio: the trial judge had not improvised but relied on rules of the art in evidence, and in any event the requirement that an expert report be objective, rigorous, and accurate belongs to the judicial process itself. In G.C. c. Brahm, the court held that it needs no expert report to determine that a veterinarian is not competent to draft a will, and on the same reasoning found that a psychiatrist treating a party for depression and anxiety was not competent to make custody and access recommendations, an act reserved to social workers and psychologists, as the psychiatrist himself admitted.

The case law thus confines the Roberge breach. The judge is never bound by an expert opinion, but cannot pronounce on a technical practice outside judicial knowledge, and without admissible expert evidence on such a practice the action must fail. The judge's own knowledge suffices where the practice offends elementary prudence that a layperson can grasp, and where the question is the quality of the expert report itself.

Practice Checklist

Case protocol and choice of expert

Address the joint expert question in the case protocol (art. 148 CCP) and record in writing the reasons for rejecting it (St-Louis c. La Presse).
If a joint expert is used, fix the parameters, the expert, and the fees by agreement or court order (art. 233 CCP).

Fee arrangements

Disclose any contingent fee arrangement and prepare the expert to explain it candidly (Trudeau c. Pellemans).

Treating physician

Where the treating physician testifies for the patient, document the scarcity of alternative experts and limit disclosure to what the mandate requires (Véronneau c. Girouard).
Where a party seeks to call the treating physician against the patient, apply the functional test of Sainte-Justine c. A.P. and verify art. 66 of the Code of ethics of physicians.

Expert report and immunity

Remove from every report any statement that qualifies conduct legally (fraud, negligence, dishonesty) or exceeds the field of competence (Audet c. Landry; G.C. c. Brahm).

Common practice and fault

When the defence pleads conformity with common practice, determine whether the impugned precaution is technical (judge defers, Leduc c. Soccio) or a matter of elementary prudence (judge may find the practice unreasonable, Hébert, Ter Neuzen, G. v. C., Suite c. Cooke).

Glossary

Auxiliary of justiceauxiliaire de la justice: The expert's status as a participant in the judicial process, bound to remain within the mandate and not to usurp the judge's functions.
Case protocolprotocole de l'instance: The document the parties must cooperate to establish at the outset of a proceeding; it must address whether to proceed by expert opinion and the reasons for not using a joint expert (art. 148 CCP).
Common professional practicepratique professionnelle courante: The way members of a profession generally act; strong but not conclusive evidence of reasonable conduct.
Contingent feerémunération au résultat: An arrangement under which the expert is paid only if the retaining party prevails; a fact bearing on credibility and probative value rather than a ground for automatic exclusion.
Court-appointed expertexpert désigné par le tribunal: A qualified person designated by the court under art. 234 CCP with a defined mission, deadline, and fees.
Elementary prudenceprudence élémentaire: The level of ordinary care a layperson can recognize without expert help; the domain in which a judge may find a common practice unreasonable.
Expert conferencingconcertation des experts: The practice of having opposing experts confer after delivering their reports to narrow disagreement.
Joint expert opinionexpertise commune: An expert opinion commissioned by all parties together, who agree on its scope, the expert, and the fees (art. 233 CCP).
Obligation of meansobligation de moyens: The professional's undertaking to act as a reasonably prudent and diligent professional would, without guaranteeing the result.
Professional secrecysecret professionnel: The physician's duty of confidentiality, which constrains a treating physician who acts as expert.
Relative immunityimmunité relative: The protection that lets an expert speak frankly without fear of a damages claim, provided the expert stays within the mandate and meets the standards of objectivity and rigour.
Res judicatachose jugée: The binding effect of a final judgment; a notary's failure to consider it was the fault found in Roberge c. Bolduc.
Rules of the artrègles de l'art: The recognized professional standards against which a professional's acts, including the drafting of an expert report, are measured.
Treating physicianmédecin traitant: The physician in a therapeutic relationship with the patient, as distinguished from an independent expert retained solely to give an opinion.

References and Further Reading

Code of Civil Procedure (Code de procédure civile): arts. 148, 233, 234.
Code of ethics of physicians (Code de déontologie des médecins), RLRQ c M-9, r 17: art. 66.
Collège des médecins du Québec, La médecine d'expertise : guide d'exercice, 2021, pp. 13 and 25.
Selected case law: Développements Pierrefonds inc. c. Ville de Montréal, 2020 QCCA 428; Webasto c. Transport TFI 6, 2019 QCCA 342; St-Louis c. La Presse ltée, 2021 QCCA 1782; Trudeau c. Pellemans, 2006 QCCS 199; Fillion c. Cantin, 2012 QCCS 2666; Véronneau c. Girouard, 2021 QCCS 1704; Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine c. A.P., 2022 QCCS 4033, aff'd 2023 QCCA 58; Audet c. Landry, J.E. 2009-1472 (C.S.); Fortier c. Lavoie, 2012 QCCA 754; J.S. c. Lamontagne, 2016 QCCS 3758, aff'd 2019 QCCA 377; G.C. c. Brahm, 2020 QCCS 1844, aff'd 2021 QCCA 303; Roberge c. Bolduc, [1991] 1 SCR 374; Sasseville c. Bonneville, 1991 CanLII 2780 (C.A.); Compagnie mutuelle d'assurances Wawanesa c. GMAC Location ltée, 2005 QCCA 197; Stunell c. Pelletier, [1999] R.J.Q. 2863 (C.S.); Leduc c. Soccio, 2007 QCCA 209; Hébert c. Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire de Québec, Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus, 2011 QCCA 1521; Watters c. White, 2012 QCCA 257; Ter Neuzen c. Korn, 1995 CanLII 72 (SCC); Samms v. Moolla, 2019 ONCA 220; G. v. C., [1960] B.R. 161; Suite c. Cooke, EYB 1993-86781 (C.S.), aff'd 1995 CanLII 4836 (QC CA).
Doctrine: Yvan Desjardins, "L'effet de la chose jugée et l'examen des titres, ou la responsabilité notariale selon la Cour suprême", (1992) 94 R. du N. 283; Yvan Desjardins, "Les suites de l'affaire Dorion", in Brigitte Lefebvre (ed.), Mélanges Roger Comtois, Montréal, Thémis, 2007, 271; P.-Y. Marquis, "L'affaire Dorion : les conséquences du jugement de la Cour suprême sur la pratique notariale et sur l'examen des titres", (1992) 1 C.P. du N. 1; Patrice Deslauriers and Emmanuel Préville-Ratelle, "Commentaires généraux", in Collection de droit 2022-2023, vol. 5, Responsabilité; Geneviève Cotnam, as cited in Webasto c. Transport TFI 6; Martin Dallaire and Pierre Lortie, as cited in Fillion c. Cantin.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Quebec civil law may evolve through legislation and judicial interpretation. For advice on a specific situation, consult a qualified Quebec lawyer or notary.

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