Judge refuses to toss out CSL lawsuit against insurance company | City News

Quebec Court Judge Louis Riverin recently refused a request by the Beneva insurance company to toss out a $45,000 lawsuit against the City of Côte St. Luc in relation to a disability claim brought several years ago by a former employee.

CSL called for Beneva’s request to be rejected because it was filed well beyond the deadline of 45 days from the time the city’s lawsuit was known to the insurance company — the lawsuit was filed in September 2024 and Beneva requested the dismissal in August 2025.

The city is demanding damages from Beneva, claiming it did not properly handle the disability insurance file of a former employee. Ultimately, the employee received an out of court settlement from Beneva.

CSL’s original lawsuit argues that Beneva “failed in its contractual duties,” that it did not sufficiently inform the city what was taking place during its handling of the file, that the out of court settlement took place without guaranteeing that a future action wouldn’t be brought against the city, that the company expressed views about the employee’s file without doing a complete investigation and that the situation before the case was settled out of court prompted the employee to be angry enough to send anonymous defamatory emails partially blaming CSL.

The angry employee had written at one point, “my payments on insurance had come to an end at the end of February 2021. I also found out just a few days prior that my application to CSST was rejected. I had no idea when my next paycheque would come.”

Beneva argued that CSL’s lawsuit should be declared by the court to be “abusive and inadmissible on the grounds that it is manifestly ill-founded, disproportionate, and doomed to fail” and that the city “lacks standing to act regarding the insurance policy.”

The judge ruled that Beneva had the burden of convincing the court that it had a sufficiently good reason for missing the 45-day deadline to request a dismissal before the merits of the case were heard. In this case, Beneva’s lawyer had thought the legal proceedings had been suspended and that the 45-day rule did not apply. 

“The lawyer’s mistake is not a reasonable and sufficient ground to justify the delay in bringing the motion to” dismiss CSL’s case, the judge said.

Aside from the deadline, citing a previous case, the judge said that the court “does not have to decide on the chances of success of the [future trial] or on the merits of the alleged facts, since it is for the trial judge to decide, after a trial and therefore after a debate, whether the allegations of fact have been proven. When a motion to declare inadmissibility is brought, a principle of caution applies and it is appropriate to avoid prematurely terminating a trial.”

Beneva also argued that CSL has no standing in the case because the insurance policy holder is actually the Union des municipalités.

“However, on its face, the [insurance] contract identifies the city,” the ruling says.

The judge ultimately determined that the claims by both CSL and Beneva will be decided during the hearing in which both arguments will be presented.