A Quebec judge has rejected an automaker’s attempt to reopen a vehicle-fire judgment after finding it supplied no data to support its proposed defence.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Ian Demers dismissed Tesla Motors Canada ULC’s application on Sept. 30. The manufacturer had failed to answer a lawsuit from Intact Insurance over a destroyed 2020 Model X P100D.
Intact had compensated its policyholder and sued Tesla to recover the full insurance payment. A special clerk granted judgment by default on June 9.
The insurer brought the claim through subrogation, meaning it pursued the policyholder’s rights against the manufacturer after paying the loss.
Tesla sought to suspend enforcement and have the judgment revoked. Its representatives argued that Intact had served the lawsuit at a service centre rather than its designated legal address. They also sought an opportunity to obtain evidence that poor maintenance or misuse caused the fire.
Demers rejected both grounds.
“Tesla ULC does not put forward even a minimally serious ground of defence,” he wrote, in translation.
The service centre was listed in Quebec’s business registry as Tesla’s principal establishment in the province. An assistant manager forwarded the lawsuit to the regional manager, who sent it to a coordination team in Palo Alto, Calif.
Tesla supplied no explanation of what happened to the documents afterward.
A subsequent notice to enforce the judgment followed the same internal route and reached the appropriate recipients. Demers noted that Tesla had identified no change to its document-handling instructions that would explain the different outcomes.
Regional management maintained that Quebec claims should be served on Gowling, Tesla’s agent for service. Demers said Tesla had not supplied the source of that instruction or explained how Intact could have known about it.
He also rejected the suggestion that Intact needed to take further steps to prompt a response. Answering the lawsuit was Tesla’s responsibility. Once the case proceeded by default, Intact could obtain judgment without another notice.
Tesla’s proposed defence rested on one sentence in a sworn statement from Marie-Lise Gingras, its regional manager for Eastern Canada. She stated that, in her experience with Tesla, vehicle fires typically arose from misuse or vandalism.
An expert retained by Intact had concluded that an electrical failure caused this fire. Demers identified the expert report as dated May 9, 2025.
The judge did not require Tesla to prove an alternative cause at the preliminary stage. However, he found it implausible that a large automaker could offer no data supporting its general assertion about misuse and vandalism.
The legal question was whether Tesla had grounds to reopen the default judgment. Demers explained that a party seeking that relief must provide both a sufficient explanation for its failure to defend and proposed grounds of defence that do not appear frivolous.
He found neither. His decision left the June 9 judgment standing and imposed legal costs on Tesla.
“If misuse or vandalism are ‘typically’ the cause of fires involving a Tesla vehicle, and Intact’s evidence is as weak as it claims, it can demonstrate that at the preliminary stage,” Demers wrote, in translation.
