The decision isn't quite as dramatic as some suggest. The City has a statutory duty to keep sidewalks open and safe; all the decision does is say the City has to comply with that duty:
http://bit.ly/ogt2hQ
To plow or not to plow. That is the $21 million question.
Toronto appears to have slipped and fallen hard after the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling making the city liable for injuries suffered by a woman who fell and broke her wrist while walking through an icy laneway that had not been plowed.
The city's 11-year legal battle to avoid removing ice and snow from busy laneways has so far cost about $300,000 but this decision may cost taxpayers millions more. The city has fought, and lost, at every court level, except the Supreme Court.
The case involves Vier Guy, a nurse who fell and fractured her wrist in March 1999, while walking in a laneway adjacent to the Greenwood subway station.
Guy slipped and fell on a thick accumulation of ice that was concealed by snow.
Unless the city takes the fight to the Supreme Court of Canada the decision means Toronto, and other municipalities across Ontario "must now take steps to ensure busy laneways and walkways are maintained safe for pedestrians and are free of ice and snow," or face similar lawsuits, says Guy's lawyer, Alan Preyra
7 comments:
Cities do not have a statutory duty to keep sidewalks open. At least I've never seen the law that says that. If this ruling says that, and I haven't read it, it will be very sweeping indeed. Municipalities all across Ontario choose not to keep some sidewalks open during the winter. I hope this gets appealed because it really does seem like the wrong decision, but again I haven't read it.
Anonymous said..."Cities do not have a statutory duty to keep sidewalks open...but again I haven't read it."
I say if you haven't read it and especially if you're NOT a lawyer you shouldn't comment!
So if I don't clear my sidewalk within 24 hours of a snow fall, the city can fine me. Yet they can leave busy, and oft traveled lane ways covered in snow and ice, and not do a damned thing about it?
Interesting attempt at twisting my words around, David. You take two different sentences and piece them together to make it seem as though I haven't read the legislation. I'm well versed in the legislation in this case, it's the ruling I have not read. And I am not aware of a single piece of legislation that requires municipalities to keep sidewalks open. I think Morton is wrong when he states this, but he can show me the legislation if he likes.
The discussion in this case turned on the statutory duty articulated under s 44 of the Municipal Act and its predecessor provision, as it then was. The statute imposes a duty on a municipality to maintain the sidewalk to a state of repair that is reasonable, given its character and location. (and on the facts of this case, Mr. Morton is quite correct to refer to that colloquially as "open")At trial, the argument was that the circumstances of the case, which included evidence of frequent and longstanding use by children, residents, business operators and patrons, required a standard of repair commensurate with that risk. The evidence of that frequent use was uncontroverted.
The distinction that James may have mildly understated in his usual erudite analysis was that this laneway was in fact not a sidewalk, had never been intended for that purpose and was in fact not deemed by the court to be a sidewalk. It was a commercial laneway that, by custom, had taken on the attributes of an access corridor. The court held that this was a fact of which the city knew or ought to have known and which triggered the duty to maintain it in a condition fit for pedestrian traffic. The implication drawn is that it potentially creates a new category of highway, that being the "mixed-used" roadway and creates a duty to pedestrians where none may originally have been intended. And despite the fact that the duty to pedestrians on roadways was obviated by the amendment to the Minimum Maintenance Standards, an exception to that rule is now carved out.
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