Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Dispute over whether the plumbing contractor was mandated by the homeowners or by the insurer to prepare and transmit an expert report on the home’s drainage system.
• Absence of preponderant proof from the homeowners that the contractor breached a mandate owed to them by sending the report to the insurer.
• Causation challenge: even assuming fault in transmitting the report, the court found no causal link between that act and the insurer’s later decision to cancel the insurance policies.
• Evidence established that the insurance cancellations stemmed from the insured’s aggressive conduct toward the insurer’s claims adjuster during a site visit, not from the contents of the expert report.
• Credibility assessment favored the contractor and the insurer’s documentation over the homeowner’s denial of the June 5 incident.
• Resulting conclusion that the plaintiffs alone were responsible for their loss, leading to the dismissal of their claim and an order that they pay the contractor’s court costs of $374.00.

Facts of the case

Daniel Therrien and Jocelyne Gauthier experienced water-related issues at their property and contacted Plomberie Carignan inc., represented by Jean-Yves Carignan, to deal with problems involving their drainage system. The contractor performed work that included unblocking the drain through pressure cleaning and conducting a camera inspection of the system. This work was billed to Therrien, as reflected in an invoice specifically linked to the cleaning and camera inspection.
In parallel, an insurance claim for the loss was opened with Intact compagnie d’assurance, the couple’s home and automobile insurer. The core factual dispute emerged around an expert report assessing the causes of the loss and the conformity of the drainage system. Therrien and Gauthier maintained that they themselves had mandated Carignan to prepare this expert report and that Carignan wrongfully transmitted that report to Intact, allegedly betraying their mandate. They argued that this transmission ultimately triggered Intact’s decision to cancel their home and auto policies, which in turn caused them financial prejudice when they later had difficulty securing replacement coverage at higher premiums.
Carignan, however, gave a different account. He asserted that his mandate from Therrien was limited to operational work on the drain—unblocking and camera inspection—and that the formal “expertise” on causation and system conformity was not requested by the plaintiffs at all. According to him, the expert mandate came from Intact after a separate telephone call from the insurer on the same day as Therrien’s call. In support, Carignan relied on two separate invoices: one addressed to Therrien for the cleaning and camera inspection, and a second addressed to Intact for the expert opinion work, as well as an email from Intact dated shortly after those phone calls.

Conflicting mandates and the evidentiary gap

The homeowners tried to persuade the court that Carignan had first accepted an expert mandate from them, then chosen to prefer the insurer’s mandate, effectively shifting his allegiance to Intact and disclosing the resulting report to the insurer without proper authorization. This, they contended, was the wrongful act that led to their insurance difficulties.
The court closely examined the documents from both sides, including the two invoices and the email from the insurer. It concluded that the written evidence was not inconsistent with either version of events: the paperwork could fit both the plaintiffs’ claim that a mandate was originally given by Therrien and the defendant’s position that the expertise was requested by Intact. Because the claimants bear the burden of proof in civil matters under Quebec law, and because their evidence did not allow the court to reach a preponderant conclusion in their favor on who mandated the expert report, the factual foundation of their allegation against Carignan remained unproven.

Causation and the real reason for policy cancellation

Even assuming, for argument’s sake, that sending the expert report to Intact could be considered a fault by the contractor, the court held that there was no causal relationship between that act and the termination of the insurance contracts. The decisive evidence came from Intact’s own correspondence. The insurer’s letter explained that the cancellation of all of the plaintiffs’ policies did not arise from the content of the expert report, but from events that took place on 5 June 2024 at the insureds’ residence during the handling of their claim.
During that visit, claims adjuster Mélissa Dancause, acting for Intact, met with Therrien. According to the testimony of Carignan, who was on site, Therrien directed harsh reproaches at Dancause, then allegedly grabbed her by the arm and pushed or shoved her outside the property. The court record showed that, immediately following these events, Intact terminated the plaintiffs’ insurance policies and their insurance broker also terminated its mandate.

Credibility assessment and supporting documentation

Therrien denied that any such incident occurred. The court was thus faced with conflicting testimonies—his word against that of Carignan. The judge, however, had little hesitation in preferring Carignan’s version. That testimony was corroborated by Intact’s letter describing the June 5 events as the basis for cancellation and by an email written by Dancause the very next day, which documented her account contemporaneously.
Importantly, the same email that supported the adjuster’s account also confirmed that the insurer processed and paid the plaintiffs’ claim according to the terms of the policy. The insurer reimbursed the cost of the original plumbing work and camera test, including the invoice issued by Plomberie Carignan for the inspection that contributed to the expert report. This showed that, apart from the altercation on June 5, the claim itself had been handled in the ordinary course and that the expert work was integrated into a normal claims process rather than being the trigger for punitive measures.

Policy context and the limits of contractor responsibility

The judgment does not reproduce or analyze specific policy clauses, such as detailed cancellation, misconduct, or cooperation provisions. However, the court’s reasoning makes clear that the insurer relied on the insured’s conduct during the claims handling process—particularly the physical and verbal treatment of its adjuster—as justification to terminate the policies. This places the focus on the insured’s own behavior, rather than any technical coverage term or exclusion tied to the expert report.
The court emphasized that the transmission of the expert report had no link to the alleged damages claimed by Therrien and Gauthier. It further stressed that neither Plomberie Carignan inc. nor its representative held any control over an insurer’s independent decision to continue coverage, deny coverage or cancel policies. In other words, the legal responsibility for any loss associated with loss of insurance coverage could not be shifted to the contractor in circumstances where the insurer’s decision was grounded in the insured’s conduct and independently taken by the insurer.

Outcome and monetary consequences

On this evidentiary and legal foundation, the Court of Québec, Small Claims Division, dismissed in full the claim by Jocelyne Gauthier and Daniel Therrien against Plomberie Carignan inc., finding it to be entirely without merit. The court also dismissed, without costs, Plomberie Carignan’s third-party (garantie) claim against Intact compagnie d’assurance, since no liability on the contractor’s part was established that would justify a shift of responsibility to the insurer. As a result, the successful party in the proceedings is Plomberie Carignan inc., and the only monetary order made by the court is that Gauthier and Therrien are condemned jointly and severally to reimburse Plomberie Carignan inc. its court costs fixed at $374.00, with no additional damages or costs awarded beyond that amount.