Desjardins Sécurité financière, compagnie d’assurance vie c. Émond, 2016 QCCA 161
On February 2, 2016, the Court of Appeal handed down a decision on the limits of the application of the first paragraph of Article 2402 C.C.Q., which allows an insurer to include a general exclusion in its insurance policy in the event of a violation of the law constituting an indictable offence. The Court of Appeal held that such an exclusion clause only applies in the case of strictly indictable offences, as opposed to so-called hybrid offences, i.e. offences where the public ministry, as prosecutor, has the choice to proceed by indictment or summary proceedings. Indeed, depending on the prosecution’s choice, for the same offence a person could be found guilty of having committed an indictable offence or of having committed a summary conviction offence. This is what is commonly known as a hybrid offence.
