Supreme Court of Canada Dismisses Intact Insurance’s Application for Leave to Appeal, Confirms our Client Roma Capital’s Win at the Court of Appeal of Québec

Woods is proud to announce that the Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed with costs the application for leave to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal of Québec in Roma Capital inc. v. Intact Compagnie d’assurance, 2023 QCCA 307. Our client, Roma Capital, now has a final judgment for the full amount of its claim, with interest and costs.

Last March, the Court of Appeal of Québec reversed the judgment of first instance that had dismissed Roma’s insurance claim as the secured creditor whose security (a house) had burned down while vacant. The house was covered by a homeowner’s insurance policy that contained an exclusion for vandalism during a vacancy. It also included the standard mortgage clause drafted by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which creates a separate contract between the insurer and the secured creditor. The majority of the Court of Appeal (i) supported our arguments, (ii) reiterated the principle that this standard clause prevails over the rest of the insurance policy in the event of an incompatibility and (iii) found that this principle applies even in the absence of any fault or violation on the part of the principal insured. In this case, Intact had argued that the standard clause only shielded the secured lender from faults of the principal insured (such as an unauthorized vacancy), and not in the case of a vacancy disclosed to the insurer. This judgment constitutes an important victory for our client, on the coverage issue as well as on the quantum that was revised by the Cour of Appeal.

Louis Seveno represented Roma Capital Inc., with the assistance of Marie-Hélène Beaudoin. Click here for the decision on appeal (in French) and here for the English summary.