This personal injury action arises from a slip and fall in a marked pedestrian crosswalk during a winter weather event. The plaintiff sued the property owner, property manager, and winter maintenance contractor. The action proceeded to trial on liability alone (the parties reached an agreement on the quantum of damages). Justice Henderson held that the property manager and the winter maintenance contractor were both negligent with respect to the removal of ice following freezing rain, and the plaintiff was not contributorily negligent.
With respect to the property manager, Justice Henderson held that there were unreasonable deficiencies in the winter maintenance system that it arranged, the most significant of which was that it did not include any specific provision for inspecting and monitoring the property. The system did not include consideration of the nature or frequency of any possible monitoring or inspection. Justice Henderson acknowledged that the property manager and the winter maintenance contractor engaged in some ad hoc monitoring of the property, however their efforts were casual, inconsistent, and not well defined. Justice Henderson further found that the system was deficient in failing to adequately address freezing rain.
With respect to the winter maintenance contractor, Justice Henderson held that it failed to meet its obligations under the winter maintenance services agreement by unreasonably failing to respond to the icy conditions on the property.