Corporations, aléas des affaires et justice civile au Québec, 1880-1930 : le cas du district de Trois-Rivières

Abstract

While some theses suggest that the law and the courts were subordinated to the wishes of entrepreneurs and companies during the transition to industrial capitalism, the authors argue that the growth of large scale industries and incorporated firms was accompanied by a more intensive judicial regulation of the economic field, a process evidenced by the rise of lawsuits against firms, the increase of contested causes and the increase of judgements rendered against corporations. As conflicts, damages and accidents of all kinds multiplied with big industry, the courts were one of the few remedies against an anarchical and almost unfettered industrialization and commercialization of social life.