Advertisement

Court dismisses lawsuit against City of Yellowknife for woman's icy tumble

Court dismisses lawsuit against City of Yellowknife for woman's icy tumble

An N.W.T. judge has dismissed an $8,000 claim against the City of Yellowknife made by a woman who broke her wrist slipping on an icy sidewalk in 2015.

Nancy Vail claimed that the city had been responsible for her fall — it had not put salt or sand on a slippery patch of sidewalk on the Franklin Avenue hill down to Yellowknife's Old Town.

Both sides of the case agreed the sidewalk had been cleared earlier in the day.

But Vail said the city should have known dangerously slippery conditions would return in the evening, when she fell, due to fluctuating temperatures.

"I accept their evidence that walking conditions on the Franklin hill were dangerous that evening," wrote Justice Bernadette Schmaltz, in a territorial court decision released on Monday.

"No evidence was called that anyone at the city had been made aware of the dangerous conditions that had developed on the Franklin hill that evening, so I do not find that the city knew of a dangerous situation and ignored it," she continued.

Gross Negligence?

Schmaltz agreed with Vail that the city has a duty to keep the sidewalks safe for its citizens, and it failed at that duty the night she slipped.

However this doesn't mean the city had been grossly negligent — a much higher legal standard than simple negligence — and therefore liable.

"I agree that allowing dangerous conditions to remain, or ignoring them completely when the city has a duty to keep sidewalks safe, would constitute gross negligence," wrote Schmaltz.

But, she continued, "the city had cleared the sidewalk of snow and ice, and then unfortunately perhaps due to the weather a dangerous situation developed."

During the trial, Vail had suggested that the city should be monitoring the sidewalk hourly.

Schmaltz agreed that "such a policy may make the sidewalks safer.

"But it would impose a significant financial burden on the city," she said.

Schmaltz concluded by writing that Vail would not have to pay for the city's legal costs, even though she lost the case.

The city had not been grossly negligent, Schmaltz wrote. But it "did have a duty of care to Ms. Vail, and that… duty was breached on November 9, 2015, resulting in significant injury to Ms. Vail."