Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

A lawsuit filed against the Municipality of Litchfield in which the plaintiffs claimed financial, moral and exemplary damages, will not proceed in court, a judge has decided.

In Mar. 2023, the three plaintiffs, siblings Colleen McGuire, Michael McGuire and Mary Ellen McGuire, sued Litchfield for $14,780.30 in damages they claim to have suffered over the course of the dispute with the municipality, which began in 2015.

But at the case’s first hearing in the Campbell’s Bay courthouse at the end of September, the municipality, represented by its director general Julie Bertrand, submitted that the case should be dismissed because the claim was initiated more than six months after the damages had been caused, which disqualifies it under Quebec’s municipal act (section 1112.1)

After several weeks of deliberation, the judge, Honourable Serge Laurin, decided in favour of the municipality’s submission for a dismissal of the case.

“The cause of the application arose no later than August 10, 2021, and the application was instituted on Mar. 2, 2023, more than 6 months after that date. As soon as all the elements constituting the burden of proof were met, the limitation period began to run,” the judge’s October decision reads.

“Considering that the McGuire family suffered sufficient prejudice, administrative errors and that its application had a chance of success, without this technicality, the Court will not award legal costs,” the decision concludes.

The conflict can be traced back to 2007 when a land surveyor listed a lot as belonging to the Municipality of Litchfield which the plaintiffs believed to belong to their father, Aloysius McGuire.

The McGuire’s statement of claim submitted to the court states that in 2015, when they learned of the municipality’s “intent to sell or grant servitude” to the lot to neighbouring property owners, the plaintiffs tried to prove to the municipality, using deeds and other legal documents, that this property should still be under their father’s name.

The claim says that this and every subsequent attempt to prove ownership of the lot was rejected by the municipality and that only in 2021, when a reconsideration of the original 2007 survey report ordered by Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests (MERN) found the property did indeed still belong to Aloysius McGuire, did the municipality state that it would not be seeking a review of this finding.

Then, in Mar. 2023, the siblings filed for damages. At September’s first hearing of the case, Mary Ellen McGuire disputed the Aug. 2021 date of harm identified by Bertrand. She said that for her family, this case was not only about the question of who owned the lot, a dispute resolved on Aug. 10, but also about the ways in which the municipality, in her opinion, abused its power and breached its code of ethics, the harm from which continued beyond Aug. 10, 2021.

To learn more about this court case, read THE EQUITY’s story, https://theequity.ca/damages-claim-over-litchfield-property-dispute-goes-to-court/, published in our Oct. 2 issue.