Delict

Rather than adhere to the common law of tort, Quebec has sustained a civil law response to tort and negligence, which it awkwardly calls a "delict" (in French, the term is délit).

The full text of the Civil Code in regards to civil liability (responsabilité civile) is at §1457:

"Every person has a duty to abide by the rules of conduct which lie upon him, according to the circumstances, usage or law, so as not to cause injury to another.

"Where he is endowed with reason and fails in this duty, he is responsible for any injury he causes to another person by such fault and is liable to reparation for the injury, whether it be bodily, moral or material in nature.

"He is also liable, in certain cases, to reparation for injury caused to another by the act or fault of another person or by the act of things in his custody."

Thus, for there to be the equivalent of tort liability in Quebec, under §1457 of the Quebec Civil Code, there has to be:

1. "Fault" but which, in Quebec "can be understood as arising from the breach of a duty imposed by law.... Allegedly wrongful conduct will crystallize into a fault where it falls short of the conduct expected of a normaly prudent and reasonable person acting under identical circumstance";¹

2. Damages, losses or an "injury";

3. Causation; "sufficient casual connection between the fault and the harm or loss caused"¹; and

4. A defendant "endowed with reason" (i.e. not mentally disabled). 

 REFERENCES:

• Civil Code of Quebec, published at canlii.org/qc/laws/sta/ccq/index.html
• ¹Linden, A., Canadian Tort Law (Toronto: Butterworths, 2001), p.736 and 739.