In the Lacour v. Construction D.M. Turcotte TRO inc.1 decision delivered in June 2019, the Court of Appeal of Québec distanced itself from the established traditional principles relating to prescription (limitation of actions) when damage manifests itself gradually or after a period of time. The Court concluded that the three-year prescription period within such context begins when the cause of the damage is known.
In this case, the appellants (the owners) waited more than 10 years after the first cracks appeared in their home to seek the advice of an expert. After receiving the expert's report on the cause of the cracks, the owners sued the contractor for the defects in the construction of the home. The contractor then filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the statutory time limit had expired.
Although the appellants acknowledged the damages they had suffered increased substantially over the years, the Court of Appeal concluded that the prescription period began when the owners learned of the conclusions of the expert's report. It was at that time they became aware of the causal link between the contractual fault and the gradual damage that had occurred.
The Court of Appeal, nevertheless, found that the action was time-barred for other reasons.
In this decision, the Court of Appeal distanced itself from the following traditional approach:
- In the case of damage that manifests itself gradually or after a period of time, the prescription period began on the day the damage manifested itself appreciably or tangibly, and not from the date the plaintiffs gained knowledge of the cause of the damage; and
- The date upon learning the expert's conclusions could not be the starting point for the prescription period.
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