Jurisdiction of the court at the place of execution of interim measures

Facts

Project managers had entrusted a contractor with carpentry and joinery work on a chalet they were building in the canton of Vaud. After acceptance of the work, the clients noticed a problem with the spacing of the joints under the roof and sent a notice of defect to the contractor. On July 29, 2011, the clients filed a request for future evidence before the Justice of the Peace of the district of Aigle, who declared himself incompetent. The Delegate Judge of the Civil Court of Appeal of the Vaud Cantonal Court subsequently recognized the competence of the Justice of the Peace seized, pursuant to Art. 13 CPC. The contractor then appealed to the Federal Tribunal.

Considerations

The Federal Tribunal dismissed the appeal, considering that Art. 13 CPC provides for two alternative fora for the ordering of interim measures: the court competent to rule on the main action or the court of the place where the measure is to be executed. This latter option is not limited to cases of urgency, contrary to what the contractor claimed.

Indeed, the preparatory work of Art. 33 LFors, from which Art. 13 CPC is derived, shows that the legislator deliberately removed the restriction to…