ABCA upholds contempt finding for parties who withheld and gave false information to court
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2025 9:06 am
ABCA upholds contempt finding for parties who withheld and gave false information to court
The appellate court affirmed this finding despite the parties later correcting the information
By Jessica Mach
05 Aug 2025
Three former employees being sued by environmental technology company Questor were in contempt of court when they withheld and provided false evidence in court proceedings, the Court of Appeal for Alberta ruled, affirming a lower court’s finding that the employees collectively participated in a “scheme to mislead, conceal and falsify.”
The ABCA said in a decision Friday that the lower court’s finding was accurate even though the defendants ultimately corrected the false evidence. The appellate court pointed to a case management order by the lower court – which it referred to as the “records decision” – requiring the employees to produce a variety of records related to the case, including emails.
“The chambers justice acknowledged that the false evidence had been corrected but found those corrections to have been ‘motivated by self-interest to correct the record without further delay once the effect of the records decision would reveal the errors. They were mitigating the fallout of their conduct once having been found out,’” the ABCA said.
The appellate court added that the lower court judge “was clearly of the view that the conduct of the individual defendants, which he described as a ‘scheme to mislead, conceal and falsify’... was egregious, threatened the authority of the court, and warranted sanction for civil contempt.
“These findings were available to him on the record and we see no error in his decision to exercise his discretion to find contempt.”
Questor sued the three employees and Emission, the company they founded, in 2018. In its lawsuit, Questor alleged the employees breached their duties to the company by developing a competing technology for Emission while they were still employed by Questor.
In response, the employees denied that they breached their duties to Questor. They also denied that the Emission technology involved the use of confidential or proprietary information belonging to Questor.
Questor filed a number of pre-trial applications, including a request that the lower court issue an order compelling the defendants to produce a number of records. In 2022, the court granted this request, ordering the defendants to disclose records that included design information, correspondence, operating manuals, financial records, and customer lists related to Emission. The court also gave independent experts access to the defendants’ personal email accounts.
Roughly two months later, the defendants’ counsel informed the court that some of the evidence the defendants had already given to the court contained errors. They provided corrections to the errors.
Questor asked the court to declare that the three employees and Emission were in contempt of court, alleging that the defendants’ knowingly provided false evidence, withheld evidence, and misled Questor and the court. The court found the employees in contempt of court, and later clarified that Emission was not in contempt.
The defendants appealed the contempt findings. Questor meanwhile appealed the court’s finding that Emission was not in contempt of court.
The ABCA sided with the lower court. To evaluate whether the contempt findings held up, the ABCA said the lower court weighed evidence about the situation using the three-pronged test set out in a 2018 ABCA decision called Envacon Inc v. 829693 Alberta Ltd. That test asks whether the court had an existing requirement; whether the court communicated that requirement to the alleged contemnor; and whether the alleged contemnor engaged in an intentional act that breached the requirement.
The lower court concluded that the situation met the first two prongs of the test. The court also found that the defendants met the third prong of the test based on numerous pieces of evidence. For example, the court found that the fact that all three of the individual defendants withheld a large volume of evidence supported the allegation that they did so intentionally. The court also noted that each individual defendant repeatedly maintained that their false evidence was true despite being questioned and Questor’s applications to compel more records.
“While there may be cases in which knowingly providing false evidence would not support the inference that it was done to mislead the court, this is not one of them,” the ABCA said.
“We are satisfied that the chambers justice did not err in law with respect to the mental element required to establish civil contempt of court in the circumstances before him and we see no reviewable error in his conclusion that the impugned conduct constituted civil contempt.”
The ABCA dismissed the defendants’ other grounds for appeal, including their argument that the lower court failed to consider his discretion to make a contempt finding.
“In this case, the chambers justice was aware of the discretionary nature of the contempt power and was satisfied that finding civil contempt would not be unjust in the circumstances,” the ABCA said. “In reviewing that decision, we are mindful that the false evidence has been corrected and there appears to be no further need to compel behaviour, and that other meaningful remedies… were available.
“Nevertheless,” the court added, “We are satisfied that the decision of the chambers justice to find civil contempt does not disclose reviewable error in these circumstances.”
The ABCA also rejected Questor’s request to declare Emission in contempt of court, noting that “there was no argument before the chambers justice with respect to the basis on which Emission should be found in contempt for the actions of its human representatives.”
Counsel for Emission and the former Questor employees declined to comment on the ABCA’s decision because the case is ongoing.
Counsel for Questor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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