D. Jutras, “Le tiers trompé (à propos de l’affaire Bail ltée)” (1993) 72 Can. Bar Rev. 28

Le constitution du triangle

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  Le tiers peut invoquer l’existence du contrat et son inexécution comme des faits juridiques.
  
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  Méthordes:
  
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  Le contrat comme point de départ: identifier les devoirs résultant du contrat, et à déterminer lesquels, parmi ces devoirs, peuvent fonder une responsabilité quasi délictuelle à l’égard d’un tiers.
  
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  Toute faute contractuelle ne constitue pas nécessairement un délit ou un quasi-délit.
  
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  Le manque de diligence dans l’exécution de ces obligations purement contractuelles n’engage pas la responsabilité quasi délictuelle de débiteur.
  
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  Par conséquent, dans le meilleur des cas, il n’y a que certaines obligations contractuelle qui engengrent un devoir légal parallèle et symétrique. Il ne s’agit pas de chercher dans le contrat des devoirs qui puissent être transposés sur le plan extracontractuel, mais de déterminer quels sont les devoirs légaux qui résultent de la relation distincte qui existe entre le contractant et le tiers.
  
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  Le contrat exclu de l’analyse: il faut donc s’assurer que le devoir invoqué par le tiers existe séparément dans le domaine légal. C’est le cas, notamment, quant la loi impose un devoir de prudence dont le défendeur autait été tenu même en l’absence du contrat. It faut déterminer si le défendeur aurait eu un devoir de prudence à l’égard de la victime si le contract n’avait jamais existé.
  
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  Le contrat comme context factuel: ce méthord consiste à se demander si le contractant s’est comporté, à l’égard des tiers, comme l’aurait fait une personne raisonnable placée dans les mêmes circonstances.
  
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  1) si le défaut d’exécution de l’obligation contractuelle comporte une menace pour l’intégrité physique ou les choses matérielle d’autrui.
  
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  2) dans l’appréciation des devoirs des contractants à l’égard des tiers, tient aux caractères du fait préjudiciable. → s’il apparaît que le ocntractant, agissant de mauvaise foi, a porté atteinte aux intérêts du tiers en toute connaissance de cause, ou même avec l’intention de nuire.
  
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  3) l’omission qui prend la forme d’une inexécution contractuelle peut quant même, dans certains cas, engager la responsabilité civile du contractant lorsqu’un rapport particulier s’est créé entre celui-ci et le tiers. → legitimate reliance
  
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  conclusion: au delà de ces trois facteurs, dont le rôle dans la création de devoirs légaux pour les contractants n’est pas à négliger, il en existe probalement beaucoup d’autres, qu’il reste à analyser.
  

English Version

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  The SCC in Bail says that it is a fundamental obligation to self-inform and act prudently in conducting one’s affairs. And, given that information is very valuable especially when no one else has it, the temptation to stay quiet and keep things to oneself is great. But, if silence is golden, it can also be very costly is it is one of those situations where it is a fault to keep quiet.
  
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  We should be asking two questions: Can the victim who suffers an injury because of his lack of information complain about not being told? On the other hand, did the victim perform his or her fundamental obligation to self-inform? These questions are always linked: it is a matter of determining who is responsible for the lack of information: the victim or the one who knew and didn’t tell.
  
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  The SCC presents 3 criteria to guide answers to these questions:
  

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   Did the defendant have real or presumed knowledge of the facts in question? Jutras says that in essence, this means that you can only complain about the silence of those who knew or ought to have known. Those who have nothing to say do nothing wrong in saying nothing.
   
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   Was the undivulged information determinative? This supposes two things: that the victim really didn’t know, and that the damage could have been avoided had she known. Jutras says a great many situations can be resolved having regard to this causal link. But, we are still left with the question as to when the person with the information has the duty to divulge in order to avoid the harm. In comes #3.
   
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   The obligation arises when one party is in a vulnerable informational position. Such a position results either from impossibility for one party to obtain the information himself, or from legitimate reliance by one party on the other for information. It’s not just an obligation to say something, but to give accurate information. Erroneous or incomplete information is analyzed as a lack of information, as in Bail.
   

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  the SCC presents a global theory of the duty to inform, the details of which remain to be worked out in relation to the particular circumstances of each case.
  
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  in terms of a contract of enterprise, you look at the nature of the contract and the manner in which the parties envisaged their relations, who assumed the risk vis a vis insufficient information, what impact does the relative expertise of the parties have on their expectations of exchange of information in the formation and execution of the contract, these expectations, representations made by one party, do they amount to the other being in a vulnerable position? Thus, even within the same type of contract, the obligation can vary heavily according to the circumstances
  
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  other questions remain as to whether we should distinguish between inequality of information power that results from the actions or conduct of the defendant or merely from the situation of the parties. When it is the conduct of a party that indices the other to have confidence in and to rely on his information, it is much easier to justify a duty to inform. In other cases, it is just a fact of the relative expertise of the parties and the nature of the contract. But, the court imposes a duty in both situations. But, in the latter case, it arises out of a duty of loyalty between the parties rather than one of altruism. In such a case, you would probably have to show that the one who withheld the information derived a profit from his silence or acted in bad faith in exploiting the other’s ignorance. But, this remains to be seen, because the court, in the circumstances of Bail did not have to decide this because it was the conduct of Hydro Quebec that induced reliance.
  

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  But it was not the contracting party to whom the duty was clearly owed that was claiming damages in this case, it was the sub-contractor who had no contractual relationship with Hydro-Quebec. The question the court had to deal with over and above duties of information was on what ground could liability of a contracting party
  
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  The problem is the age old idea of the “relative effect of the contract” that arises, whenever the fact that generated the harm has a relation with a contract to which the plaintiff is not a party
  
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  there are 2 ways to deal with this:
  

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   enlarge the contractual circle: let some 3d parties have a direct action, such as in the case of the subsequent purchaser who is given a direct action against the manufacturer, but this was not envisaged in Bail. There is no real continuity as there is in the previous example, there is no thing passed from one person to another that links all the parties.
   
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   The triangle approach: third parties can assert the contract and the contractual fault as juridical facts. But, you can’t simply extend every contractual duty to a third party. There are 3 ways to deal with this
   

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   The contract as a starting point:
   

-The SCC says that the 3d party cannot be indemnified unless there is an autonomous legal duty that he can establish and that has not been performed.

b) The contracted taken out of the picture

-The duty has to exist separately in the legal domain, so from that starting point, the second approach would be to analyze the situation as if the contract never existed. But we can’t really do that either, because but for the contract, the 3d party would never have been in this situation. So, you can’t really analyze the duty as if the contract never existed

c) The contract as factual context

-Thus, given that you can neither ground your claim on the sole breach of a contractual duty nor can you act as though the contract didn’t exist, the correct approach, and the one adopted by the SCC is to ask if the co-contractant acted towards the 3d party as a reasonable person would have in the same circumstances, where the contract is one of the circumstances that factors into the analysis

-the parties have a duty to act reasonably in their relations with third parties, even if those relations flow from their contractual activity. The duty is fastened to the existence of the contract, but the duty to the 3d party is distinct from the duty that is owed to the co-contractant.

-we have to force ourselves to separate contractual duties on the one hand, and legal duties that are tied to the existence of the contract, on the other

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  there are several things which still need to be worked out as the jurisprudence accumulates in this area such as whether the type of injury the third party suffered will be relevant, eventhough according to extra-contractual liability of should be, or whether bad faith or malice will be a decisive factor, eventhough in theory it shouldn’t have to be, whether it will matter if the third party has a contract with one of the co-contractants as in Bail, etc.
  
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  Analysis of these types if factors will help us give content to this notion of the reasonable contractant that has now been incorporated into our law by the SCC’s decision in Bail.