Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of the engineering supervisor position as a non-union managerial role with annual salary, not an hourly job with overtime rights.
• Interpretation of the successive cadre agreements and the individual employment contract, particularly clauses excluding any right to overtime pay and limiting compensation to discretionary time off.
• Credibility assessment of alleged pre-contractual promises about a “35-hour week” and full compensation for extra hours versus the clear written terms approved by the municipal council.
• Legal effect of Samson’s own signature on the 2020–2024 cadre agreement and of later 2025–2029 terms negotiated collectively but not personally signed.
• Significance of Samson’s detailed hour-by-hour compilations, viewed by the City as tools for project costing and subsidies rather than proof of a contractual overtime entitlement.
• Evaluation of the City’s withdrawn offer of a retroactive “project-manager premium” and whether it created enforceable rights or showed bad faith sufficient to ground damages.

Facts of the employment relationship

Éric Samson is a civil engineer who previously worked in a family business where he often logged up to 70 hours per week. Seeking a more regular schedule and stability, he applied in 2019 for a managerial position as engineering supervisor with the City of Montmagny’s Public Works Department. The role was non-union and classified as a cadre (management employee). It had previously been held by Louis Létourneau, who had been promoted to Director of Public Works. The position involved supervising municipal construction projects carried out “in-house” (in régie), with very heavy workloads during the construction season from 1 April to 30 November and lighter weeks in winter.
The hiring process included a phone interview and two in-person interviews. Samson made clear that he was exhausted by his existing workload and was looking for a more reasonable schedule. He specifically asked whether the job was based on a 35-hour week. The City’s HR Director, Louise Bhérer, referred to a 35-hour figure but explained that, for cadres, this was mainly a reference for benefits and that managers were expected to work beyond 35 hours without separate overtime pay. Létourneau confirmed that, in practice, the engineering supervisor could easily work about 45 hours a week on civil works and up to 50 hours in paving season, reflecting his own experience in the role.
Samson, however, says he understood from these discussions that the City recognized a problem with excessive hours in the Public Works Directorate and that it would be addressed in a forthcoming revision of the cadre agreement. He also recalls being told he could track his hours and would be compensated in time off until the new deal was in place. Létourneau, by contrast, testified that he told Samson to compile his hours mainly as documentation in case future negotiations created a basis for some recognition, and because the job already required hour tracking for project cost allocation and subsidy purposes, not as a promise of systematic compensation.

The individual employment contract and cadre agreements

In August 2019, the municipal council passed a resolution authorizing the mayor and the Director General, Félix Michaud, to sign an individual employment contract with Samson under the conditions set out in the existing cadre agreement. The contract, signed on 20 August 2019, hired Samson as of 3 September 2019 as an engineering supervisor in a regular, indefinite-term cadre position. He was placed in class 5, step 8, of the cadre salary grid, with annual salary paid weekly, progression tied to his hiring anniversary, and certain individualized benefits (immediate access to group insurance and enhanced vacation).
The contract expressly states that the job is a cadre position, not unionizable, and that Samson agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of the cadre agreement, which is incorporated by reference as an external clause. Under the “Working hours” section, the contract further provides that, although the employment is based on the working hours set in the cadre agreement, Samson may be required, as a cadre, to work more hours during his workdays “without additional remuneration”. No special clause grants him any personal right to overtime pay or to a guaranteed one-for-one time off for extra hours, even though the City could have created such bespoke conditions if they had been negotiated and approved by council.
At that time, the applicable “Agreement establishing the working conditions of the City of Montmagny’s management employees” for 2015–2019 was in force. Its hours clause states that, “as a general rule”, the work week for a management employee is 35 hours, but emphasizes that the responsibilities of cadres cannot be confined to a fixed schedule. It is considered normal for a cadre to deviate from the usual schedule of unionized employees. Crucially, the clause provides that a management employee “has no right to remuneration for overtime worked, and this without any exception”. As a counterbalance, the Director General may authorize the employee to take back “some time”, at his discretion.
This agreement is accompanied by a detailed classification plan and weighting grid, which assign salaries based on factors including qualifications, responsibilities, effort, and working conditions. Some positions are explicitly described as involving very high stress and unavoidable extra hours. The engineering supervisor post is one of these, and Samson’s salary classification was built on that premise.
A new cadre agreement for 2020–2024 was later concluded and signed on 23 August 2021. Samson himself signed this agreement alongside the other cadres. Its hours clause essentially reproduces the earlier structure: a 35-hour week as a general reference, recognition that cadres may depart from fixed schedules, no right to overtime remuneration “without any exception”, and the possibility of additional leave days granted with the Director General’s approval. In practice, this reaffirmed that cadres, including Samson, were paid an annual salary that already accounted for seasonal peaks in working time.
A further agreement for 2025–2029 was signed on 15 October 2025. Although Samson declined to sign it because of the pending litigation, the court held that it nonetheless applied to him, since he had accepted at hiring that his conditions would be set collectively through negotiations between the City and the cadre association. This new text clarified that management employees are not governed by a fixed, predetermined schedule or precise weekly hours; they receive an annual salary in exchange for their services. The 35-hour figure appears only as a technical basis to calculate benefits (vacation, sick days, etc.). The agreement expressly states that the concept of overtime does not apply to cadres and that they have no right to any remuneration for excess hours, subject only to discretionary compensatory time off and specific, codified recognition mechanisms.

Workload, hour tracking and internal attempts to resolve the issue

In his role, Samson supervises numerous municipal worksites. To comply with subsidy requirements and for internal cost allocation, he carefully records his hours per project. His recorded hours show that, during construction season from April to November, he often works 46–47 hours per week on average, sometimes surpassing 50 hours in the busiest weeks, while in the winter his workload decreases. Over 2020 and 2021, he amasses what he considers to be a large bank of hours beyond 35 hours per week.
Concerned about the sustainability of this workload and the lack of full compensation, Samson raises the issue in 2021 during negotiations for the new cadre agreement. Director General Michaud acknowledges the extent of the workload and writes an extensive note to the municipal council. In it, he explains that, while a “reasonable” week for a cadre can be up to about 42–43 hours on an annualized average, Samson’s workload in the construction season, averaging 46–47 hours per week, exceeds that benchmark. At the same time, he stresses that the City derives substantial benefits from executing works in régie: budget savings, better control of delays and contingencies, use of local subcontractors, enhanced staff morale, maintenance of internal expertise, and significant subsidies that cover a high proportion of salary costs, including Samson’s. Samson himself, however, receives no direct advantage from the fact that his salary is partially subsidized.
Michaud presents five scenarios to council, ranging from rejecting Samson’s claim while trying to manage future workload, to adopting a broader premium scheme. One scenario proposes paying Samson at his normal hourly rate (calculated from his salary) for each hour beyond 40 hours per week, during construction weeks between 1 April and 30 November, potentially retroactive to 12 July 2021, the date the 2020–2024 cadre agreement was accepted. This would create a special “project manager on worksites” premium, tailored to the unique demands of Samson’s role.
In parallel, the City contracts Focus Ressources Humaines to conduct an organizational diagnosis, including a specific look at Samson’s position. In its May 2022 report, Focus RH confirms that it is very difficult to reduce the number of hours during summer for this position and that Samson is willing to work more hours in that period provided his compensation reflects it. The firm finds the proposed “project manager” premium to be appropriate and warns that maintaining the status quo would likely have negative consequences for Samson and the other cadres.
Following these recommendations, the council eventually favours the premium scenario. In June 2022, Létourneau writes to Samson to confirm the proposal: for every full week of worksites where Samson works more than 40 hours, he would receive a premium at his regular hourly rate for each hour above 40. The premium would be personal to him, not attached permanently to the position, and would be retroactive to 12 July 2021. Samson, however, regards this as insufficient because it leaves unpaid many hours he recorded in 2020 and early 2021. He asks that the retroactivity date be moved back to 1 January 2020 and seeks a meeting with the council’s HR committee, which is refused.

Complaint to CNESST, withdrawal of the offer and pre-litigation

With discussions stalled, Samson files a complaint with Québec’s labour standards authority, the CNESST, in July 2022. The CNESST requests payroll and related records from the City for the period from 1 June 2020 to 30 June 2022. In August 2022, it informs the City that it will not pursue the complaint, partly because Samson’s annual salary of over $100,000 puts him outside the overtime protections of the Act respecting labour standards.
In September 2022, Samson meets again with Michaud and reiterates his request that the premium’s retroactivity extend back to 1 January 2020. Michaud advises that the council will revisit the issue. Ultimately, in October 2022, Samson is told that not only will the retroactivity date not be extended, but the premium offer itself is withdrawn. Michaud testifies that the original decision in favour of the premium had carried by a slim majority and was never guaranteed to be renewed, especially in light of Samson’s refusal to accept it as initially proposed. Samson, by contrast, believes that several councillors were displeased by his CNESST complaint and that this motivated the withdrawal.
In March 2023, Samson’s lawyer sends a detailed demand letter to the City. The letter alleges that, from the very beginning of the hiring process, representatives of the City made representations that Samson would receive monetary compensation for the extra hours he worked, and that these representations persisted through the signing of the 2021 cadre agreement and even up to October 2022. It criticizes the City for failing to follow the recommendations of the Focus RH report and for withdrawing the premium in what is described as arbitrary and bad-faith conduct in reaction to Samson asserting his rights.
The City responds in April 2023 through its own counsel. It denies that any binding promises of overtime compensation were ever made and reiterates that Samson’s employment has always been governed by the cadre agreements, which unequivocally exclude any right to overtime pay for cadres. It stresses that the 35-hour reference is a technical tool for calculating benefits and that the hour logs serve for project costing and funding allocation, not as a ledger of payable overtime. As for the premium proposal, the City characterizes it as a voluntary, exceptional measure designed to address Samson’s situation, which he never accepted, and notes that the addendum to his contract was never signed.

The court claim and Samson’s monetary demand

Samson ultimately files a civil claim in the Court of Québec seeking $87,904.30 from the City, framed as unpaid salary in the form of overtime. He bases this on a painstaking compilation of 1,479.75 hours which he considers to be “extra hours” beyond a 35-hour week, starting from 5 July 2020 through the end of 2025. For each period, he applies an hourly rate derived from his annual salary at the relevant step and class of the cadre salary grid, generating annual subtotals which add up to the claimed amount. Over this period, his salary rises from $92,336 at hiring to $119,323 by the time of the proceedings.
The City contests both the factual and legal foundations of the claim. It argues that the proper comparator is not a 35-hour week with contractual overtime rights, but a management position with annual remuneration that subsumes variations in working time. It highlights that the cadre agreements, including the one Samson personally signed for 2020–2024, expressly state that cadres are not entitled to overtime pay and that any compensatory time is discretionary. It also disputes Samson’s version of the hiring discussions, stating that neither Bhérer nor Létourneau promised full compensation for all hours beyond 35 per week or a one-for-one time-off system. Finally, the City maintains that the “project manager premium” was an exceptional, optional arrangement that never became binding because Samson declined to accept its terms and no amending agreement was executed.

Judicial analysis of the contractual and evidentiary issues

The court begins by characterizing Samson’s contract as an individual contract of employment under the Civil Code of Québec, with mutual consent evidenced by signatures and supported by a salary in exchange for work performed under the City’s direction and control. The court places particular weight on the incorporation of the cadre agreement into the contract and on the explicit language about annual salary and the possibility of working more hours “without additional remuneration”.
The judge examines the 2015–2019 cadre agreement in detail, emphasizing that it sets a general 35-hour week but simultaneously states that management employees’ responsibilities mean their hours cannot be limited to a fixed schedule. The text then clearly denies any right to overtime pay, “without any exception”, and offers only the possibility of discretionary time off authorized by the Director General. The use of the phrase “some time” rather than “the time” is seen as incompatible with a rigid one-for-one compensation scheme for each additional hour worked. Past practice in the City reinforces this reading: no cadre had ever received full compensation, either in money or in time, for every hour beyond 35.
In terms of representation and consent, the court finds it unlikely that Bhérer and Létourneau told Samson he would only work 35 hours per week or that all extra hours would be fully compensated. Such promises would not only have contradicted the written agreement but would also have exceeded their authority, given that only the council, through resolutions and contracts signed by the mayor and Director General, can bind the City. Samson could see that his contract and the cadre agreement were executed by those officials and that Bhérer and Létourneau were themselves bound by the same cadre regime. In those circumstances, any belief in a guaranteed full compensation scheme based solely on interview discussions was not a reasonable, contract-creating expectation.
The court notes that Samson never claimed he lacked access to the cadre agreement at hiring. On the contrary, he appears to have known about it and later took part in the process that produced the 2020–2024 agreement, which he signed. In doing so, he accepted that his conditions of employment would periodically be negotiated collectively through the cadre association and that his own rights could be modified within that framework. This undermines his argument that the initial version of the agreement, or his subjective understanding of pre-contractual discussions, should control indefinitely.
The court distinguishes Samson’s situation from a precedent (Boies v. Conseil des Montagnais de Natashquan) where an employer unilaterally imposed a new policy without the employee’s agreement. Here, the judge stresses, Samson was represented by an association of cadres and himself signed the new agreement. The change in wording between the 2015–2019, 2020–2024 and 2025–2029 agreements further clarifies, rather than contradicts, the core principle that cadres are paid an annual salary without overtime entitlement and may receive limited, discretionary compensatory time or recognition days.
Regarding the “project manager premium”, the court recognizes that it was proposed following Focus RH’s report and was tailored to Samson’s role, but it emphasizes that the City had no contractual obligation to create such a premium, that it was conditional and narrowly approved by council, and that Samson refused it as initially framed. When council later declined to keep the offer on the table, this did not, in the court’s view, amount to bad faith or a breach of a binding promise. The evidence did not convincingly show that the withdrawal was retaliation for Samson’s CNESST complaint rather than a political decision about a discretionary measure that had not been accepted by its intended beneficiary.

Outcome and monetary consequences

In the end, the Court of Québec holds that Samson’s claim is incompatible with the contractual framework he accepted. As a cadre, he receives an annual salary that contemplates the variability and intensity of his workload, especially in construction season, and the cadre agreements explicitly bar any right to overtime remuneration. The only available relief mechanisms are the Director General’s discretionary power to grant partial time off or a limited number of recognition days under the later agreement’s codified compensation clauses. Samson’s careful records of long hours and his understandable frustration do not, by themselves, create a legal right to be paid for 1,479.75 “overtime” hours.
The judge acknowledges Samson as a hardworking and dedicated management employee and expresses hope that the employment relationship will continue harmoniously. However, the legal conclusion is clear: the City of Montmagny is the successful party, Samson’s action is dismissed in full, and none of the $87,904.30 he claimed is awarded. The court also declines to grant costs in favour of the City, given the nature of Samson’s claim and the disparity of means. As a result, the total monetary amount ordered in favour of the successful party is effectively $0, with no damages, no costs, and no other financial award being granted.