Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Central dispute flows from the termination of a construction management contract for the 23-storey SWL mixed-use condominium project in Québec City.
• Core factual issues include alleged major construction delays, unauthorized budget overruns, and deficient project management by Construction Oïkos inc. contrasted with its claim of undue pressure from the developer.
• A parallel defamation claim targets a press release by Oïkos and its president Pierre-Yves Charest, alleging reputational harm to 9384-5428 Québec inc. and Investissements immobiliers Foremsam inc. (ACERO).
• The motion turns on whether the contractual damages action and the defamation action share sufficient factual and legal connexity to justify joinder under article 210 Code of Civil Procedure.
• Risk of contradictory findings on the causes of delay and allocation of fault on the SWL project is a decisive evidentiary concern supporting joinder.
• The court ultimately orders the two actions to be joined, granting the joinder request with judicial costs in favour of the moving party, Construction Oïkos inc., without adjudicating any damages on the merits.

Facts of the case

In September 2023, 9384-5428 Québec inc. (9384) and Construction Oïkos inc. (Oïkos) entered into a construction management contract for a major real estate development known as the SWL project. The project involved a 23-storey residential and commercial building with 172 condominium units on boulevard Laurier in Québec City. 9384 acted as the owner or maître de l’ouvrage, while Oïkos was engaged as the construction manager responsible for overseeing and coordinating the work. The preliminary construction schedule given by Oïkos in August 2023 contemplated delivery of the building on 3 June 2025. As the project advanced, 9384 became increasingly dissatisfied with the progression of the works. It alleged that Oïkos failed to provide an updated and compliant schedule and did not supply an adequate action plan to catch up serious delays, despite multiple requests between June and October 2024 and again in June 2025. According to 9384, these failures translated into a delay of more than one year beyond the contractual delivery date. In addition to alleged scheduling failures, 9384 complained of unauthorized budget overruns and weak site management. It claimed Oïkos incurred numerous cost overruns without proper approval under the management contract, and that coordination on site was deficient, with insufficient and inexperienced labour, ultimately driving up project costs and impairing progress. On 7 August 2025, relying on the contract’s default and termination mechanisms, 9384 served Oïkos with a notice of default and a pre-notice of termination, with immediate effect. In the owner’s view, this step was justified by continuing delays and various contractual breaches by Oïkos. Oïkos, however, strongly disputed this characterization of events. Its president and sole shareholder, Pierre-Yves Charest, issued a press release on 20 August 2025. In that communication, Oïkos asserted that it was facing undue pressure from the developer and that a serious impasse had arisen on the SWL project, forcing it to leave the site. The press release also alleged that delays were attributable to the promoter ACERO (the commercial name of Foremsam), including an alleged “major default of payment” of several million dollars and an unjustified attempt by ACERO to take back unilateral control of the site to insert its own construction company. The communiqué was circulated to media outlets, as well as to clients and business partners of 9384 and ACERO, positioning Oïkos as a party complying with a clear contract and accusing the developer of exerting improper pressure and acting to the project’s detriment.

The two actions: contractual damages and defamation

In response to the press release, 9384 and Investissements immobiliers Foremsam inc. (Foremsam), operating under the name ACERO Groupe immobilier, filed a defamation action on 10 October 2025. They claimed punitive damages for alleged defamation and injury to reputation directed at both 9384 and ACERO, targeting statements in the press release about payment defaults, control of the site and the promoter’s conduct. In that defamation action, 9384 and Foremsam sought, respectively, 414,000 dollars and 500,000 dollars in punitive damages from Oïkos and Mr. Charest personally, as the sole shareholder and spokesperson behind the communiqué. The plaintiffs alleged that the communiqué’s dissemination, especially to their clientele and business partners immediately after termination of the contract, had the clear objective of harming their reputation, regardless of whether each allegation was literally true. In parallel, on 31 October 2025, 9384 commenced a separate contractual action against Oïkos seeking damages of 3,245,838.40 dollars. In that proceeding, 9384 claimed a wide range of economic losses allegedly caused by Oïkos’ contractual breaches. The claimed damages included excess labour directly linked to schedule slippage and labour said to be unnecessary, the loss of a parking space due to coordination errors, additional municipal and school taxes, winter protection costs, equipment rental charges, additional construction insurance, extra electricity expenses, and significant additional interest arising from loan agreements with the National Bank of Canada and with Placement Sylvain Gilbert inc., along with an amendment to the architects’ contract. All these heads of loss were framed as consequences of delays, mismanagement and overruns in the SWL project. Although legally distinct—one grounded in contractual liability and the other in extracontractual liability for defamation—both actions arise from the same project and the same rupture in the relationship following the August 2025 termination.

Procedural motion: request for joinder of proceedings

Oïkos filed a motion asking the Superior Court to order the joinder of the two cases: the defamation action and the contractual damages action. It argued that both actions stem from a common factual matrix, namely the execution and termination of the SWL management contract, and that they involved overlapping legal and factual issues, including the causes of the delays and the question of which party was at fault for the project’s difficulties. Oïkos maintained that the actions were at an early procedural stage, such that joinder would not cause delay, and that common witnesses and expert evidence—particularly a planned expert analysis of delays—would be relevant to both cases. 9384 opposed joinder. It contended that the legal tests for joinder were not met, emphasizing the need to assess the degree of connexity between the issues, the risk of contradictory judgments, judicial economy, and potential prejudice. In its view, the defamation case and the contractual case were sufficiently distinct that they should proceed separately, and it argued that combining them could cause prejudice or inefficiencies. The court’s analysis centred on article 210 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows a tribunal to order joinder of instances between the same or even different parties when this does not cause undue delay or serious prejudice. The judge recalled that the court has broad discretion when asked to join actions and must keep in mind efficient judicial management, avoiding unnecessary multiplication of proceedings and the risk of inconsistent outcomes, even at the cost of some additional delay to one of the matters.

Legal framework and criteria for joinder

The judge referred to prior case law interpreting article 210 C.p.c. and its predecessor provisions. Authorities such as Constructions Béland et Lapointe inc. v. Développement immobilier GCS inc., Commission scolaire des Découvreurs v. Bedout, and Construction Sorel ltée v. Royal & Sun Alliance du Canada were cited to underscore that the key considerations in joinder are the connexity of the issues, the possibility of using common evidence, the risk of contradictory judgments, overall efficiency, and the absence of serious prejudice. The court made clear that joinder does not require identical parties, identical conclusions or identical legal bases between the actions. What matters is the practical relationship between the underlying facts and issues and whether it is prudent to have a single judge oversee logically related disputes. Joinder may be ordered when several actions arise out of a common factual backdrop and lend themselves to a shared evidentiary record, provided no party suffers an undue delay or grave prejudice. Conversely, if joining the files would significantly delay or complicate one action or unfairly disadvantage a party, the court may decline to exercise its discretion.

Application of the criteria to the SWL disputes

Examining the two pending actions, the judge found that they clearly share a high degree of factual connexity. Both revolve around the same construction project, the same contract of construction management, and especially the same alleged delays on the site. Those delays are central to 9384’s justification for terminating the contract and form an important part of the background to the press release attacked in the defamation proceeding. In both actions, the court will need to assess the nature and causes of the project delays, the adequacy of Oïkos’ performance of its contractual duties, and the legitimacy of the criticisms levelled by each party. The judge emphasized that the contractual obligations of Oïkos will have to be examined and evaluated in both actions, because they underpin the owner’s allegations in the contractual suit and inform whether the statements in the press release were grounded in fact or unfairly damaging. This overlap created a real risk that, if separate judges considered the cases independently, they might reach inconsistent findings on who was responsible for the delays or whether Oïkos’ conduct was justified—classic contradictory judgments on core factual questions. The evidence would also significantly overlap. The same witnesses, including project participants and professionals, would very likely be called in both cases to testify about the same construction events. Protocols of the instances already revealed overlapping witnesses at the preliminary stage. Oïkos had also announced a delay and scheduling expert whose analysis would be relevant to each case. From a judicial management perspective, requiring all of this to be presented twice in separate trials would be inefficient and increase costs for the parties and the system. The court also noted that both files were still in their infancy procedurally. That meant joining them would not cause undue delay to a more advanced proceeding. While one file might have progressed slightly faster on its own, this was not enough to amount to an “indue” delay or serious prejudice, especially in light of the benefits of joinder.

Outcome and implications of the decision

The Superior Court concluded that the appropriate and most efficient course was to grant the motion for joinder. Having weighed the degree of factual and legal connexity, the substantial overlap in evidence, the risk of conflicting determinations on responsibility for delays and project difficulties, and the state of progress of each file, the judge found that a single trial based on a common evidentiary record would best serve the goals of procedural economy and coherent adjudication. The court therefore ordered that the two cases—file numbers 200-17-038105-250 (the defamation and punitive damages action by 9384 and Foremsam against Oïkos and Charest) and 200-17-038192-258 (the contractual damages action by 9384 against Oïkos)—be joined to be heard together and decided on the same evidence. The order was made “avec les frais de justice,” meaning with judicial costs in favour of the successful moving party. In this procedural ruling, the successful party is Construction Oïkos inc. (and, by extension, its side of the litigation including Mr. Charest) on its motion to join the instances. The court does not, however, decide at this stage who is ultimately liable on the contractual or defamation claims, nor does it award any of the damages sought (414,000 dollars, 500,000 dollars, or 3,245,838.40 dollars). The only monetary consequence of this judgment is the award of court costs tied to the motion, and the exact amount of those costs cannot be determined from the decision itself.