In Société d’assurance Beneva Inc. c. Ville de Sherbrooke, 2026 QCCA 1301, the Court of Appeal delivers a decision as concise as it is compelling on liability arising from the ruin of an immovable, in a case involving the rupture of a water main. Its impact could extend well beyond underground pipe failures.
The Facts
In November 2021, the failure of an underground water main owned by the City of Sherbrooke (the “City”) caused $115,000 in damage to property belonging to individuals insured by Beneva. Having indemnified its insureds, Beneva was subrogated to their rights and sought recovery of that amount from the City.
Beneva sought to invoke the legal presumption of liability under article 1467 of the Civil Code of Québec (“CCQ”), which concerns damage caused by the ruin of an immovable.
When certain factual conditions are met, the owner of the immovable (in this case the City) is presumed liable for the damage, even if no fault can be proven.
The First Instance Judgment
In its judgment of June 5, 2025 (Société d’assurance Beneva inc. v. Ville de Sherbrooke, 2025 QCCS 1841), the Court reviewed the four conditions required to trigger the presumption of liability under article 1467 CCQ. The damage must have been caused by an immovable (1), because of its ruin (2). The party sought to be held liable must own the immovable (3). Finally, the fourth and most difficult condition to establish is that the ruin must have resulted from a failure to maintain the immovable or a defect in its construction (4).
After readily finding that the first three conditions were met, the Court turned to the fourth. It first considered whether the expert evidence established a failure to maintain the water main or a construction defect. The water main had reached 80% of its expected useful life, and the experts on both sides agreed that the hole in the pipe had been caused by corrosion. In the Court’s view, however, a scientific explanation for the failure did not establish that a failure to maintain the pipe or a construction defect was involved.
Having found the expert evidence insufficient, the Court considered whether a presumption of fact could establish a construction defect or a failure to maintain the pipe. This means of proof, codified in article 2849 C.C.Q., allows an unknown fact to be inferred from known facts where those facts support a compelling inference. In other words, the unknown or unproven fact is established because it is, directly and precisely, the only logical consequence of the known or proven facts.
The Court then listed the known facts: the pipe’s age, its expected useful life, its material, the hole caused by corrosion, its underground location and its function as a water main. Reviewing these facts individually, the Court found that none of them, even taken together, supported sufficiently precise and concordant inferences of a construction defect or a failure to maintain the pipe. Although corrosion was an important indicator, the Court viewed it as a natural phenomenon that did not necessarily imply a construction defect or a failure to maintain the pipe.
The Court concluded that there was no evidence, whether direct or by way of a presumption of fact, that the ruin of the water main had been caused by a construction defect or a failure to maintain it. It therefore declined to apply the legal presumption of liability under article 1467 C.C.Q. and dismissed the action.
Cout of Appeal Decision
The appeal judgment (Société d’assurance Beneva Inc. v. Ville de Sherbrooke, 2026 QCCA 1301) is particularly compelling. In remarkably concise reasons (the judgment contains fewer than twenty paragraphs) the Court of Appeal applied the presumption of fact that the trial court had declined to apply and reversed the decision.
For the Court of Appeal, the failure of a water main before the end of its useful life, without any external intervention, could only be explained by a construction defect or a failure to maintain it. Either the pipe should have been constructed to last without maintenance, in which case its premature failure resulted from a construction defect, or maintenance was required for the pipe to last, in which case that maintenance was deficient.
The presumption of fact thus established that the ruin resulted from a construction defect or a failure to maintain the pipe. The legal presumption of liability under article 1467 CCQ could therefore apply, allowing the City to be held liable for the damage.
Takeaway
This decision may have a considerable impact on civil liability law and, by extension, insurance law. To understand why, one must return to the legal presumption of liability under article 1467 CCQ Once triggered, this presumption is particularly powerful, since the only available grounds for exoneration are superior force and the victim’s fault. However, the difficulty of proving a construction or maintenance defect had until now made it a giant with feet of clay.
This Court of Appeal ruling may have just stirred up a hornet’s nest and could have implications for many different types of infrastructure.
