Mansfield loses $108,000 garbage collection contract lawsuit
Tashi Farmilo
Local Journalism Initiative
MANSFIELD-ET-PONTEFACT – Location Martin-Lalonde Inc., a local trucking company, has won a significant legal battle against the Municipality of Mansfield-et-Pontefract, with the Quebec Court of Appeal upholding a lower court’s decision that awarded the company $108,360 in damages for lost profits. The ruling, delivered on August 13, 2024, confirms that the Municipality wrongfully awarded a municipal contract to another bidder, Entreprise R. Charette, despite the latter’s non-compliant tender.
The legal dispute began when the Municipality issued a call for tenders on October 28, 2015, for garbage, recycling, and heavy item collection. Location Martin-Lalonde submitted a bid along with a $5,000 certified cheque as tender security but failed to provide the required letter of undertaking. Based on the omittance of the letter, the Municipality rejected Martin-Lalonde’s bid and awarded the contract to Charette, the only other bidder.
After obtaining Charette’s tender documents through the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec in 2018, Martin-Lalonde discovered that Charette’s bid did not meet the essential criteria outlined in the tender documents. In response, Martin-Lalonde filed a lawsuit, claiming damages for the profits it would have earned from the five-year contract.
The Superior Court ruled in Martin-Lalonde’s favour in January 2023, stating that the irregularity in Martin-Lalonde’s bid—namely, the omission of the letter of undertaking guaranteeing the issuance of a performance bond—was minor and did not justify the rejection of their tender. The court ordered the Municipality to compensate Martin-Lalonde for the lost profits, based on the five-year contract.
The Municipality appealed the decision, arguing that the irregularity in Martin-Lalonde’s bid was significant enough to warrant its rejection and that the damages awarded were excessive. However, the Court of Appeal disagreed, ruling that the requirement for performance security, while essential, did not necessitate immediate provision of the bond. The omission was deemed a minor irregularity that did not affect the integrity of the bidding process.
Moreover, the Court upheld that Martin-Lalonde was entitled to damages, calculated based on the lost profits from the five-year contract, which the Municipality had originally awarded to Charette.
Reacting to the judgement, Mansfield Mayor Sandra Armstrong stated, “We’ve just received the judgement this week, and it’s something our insurance company is reviewing. At this point, we don’t have much more to say, but we’ll be discussing our next steps soon.”
Martin-Lalonde was unavailable for comment at the time of press.
