Robert J. Hooper

The plaintiffs brought an action against a municipality for damages arising from a trip and fall on a sidewalk.

The court considered whether the sidewalk was in a state of disrepair under s. 44 of the Municipal Act, 2001 and whether the municipality could rely on statutory defences.

The court found that a significant sidewalk crack and height differential constituted a state of disrepair and that the municipality failed to establish that it had taken reasonable steps to prevent the default.

The plaintiff pedestrian was found contributorily negligent for failing to pay adequate attention despite familiarity with the defect.

Damages were awarded for personal injury, wage loss, and related losses, subject to a 25% reduction for contributory negligence.

The appellant municipality appealed a trial judgment finding it 40 percent liable for a bicycle accident on a public trail that rendered the respondent a quadriplegic.

The appellant argued the trial judge conflated the standard of 'reckless disregard' under section 4 of the Occupiers' Liability Act with the ordinary standard of reasonable care under section 3(1).

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on the merits, finding the trial judge correctly applied section 4.

However, the Court allowed the appellant's appeal regarding costs, setting aside the trial judge's award of compound interest on expert fees.

The plaintiff suffered a broken leg after slipping on concrete slurry that had pooled on a municipal sidewalk.

The trial judge found the adjacent property owners liable for creating the slurry and the City liable for failing to keep the sidewalk in a reasonable state of repair, apportioning 20% liability to the City.

The City appealed, arguing the trial judge erred in finding the sidewalk was in a state of non-repair and in his causation analysis.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding sufficient evidence supported the trial judge's conclusions that the sidewalk's reverse slope and improper grinding repairs constituted non-repair, and that these conditions were a contributing cause of the pooling slurry and the plaintiff's fall under the 'but for' test.

The appellant appealed a jury trial judgment where the jury awarded zero for general damages.

The Court of Appeal found that while the trial judge's instructions on causation did not prejudice the appellant, the jury's answers to specific questions were inconsistent, rendering the zero damages award perverse.

Exercising its power under section 119 of the Courts of Justice Act, the Court fixed general damages at $35,000, less a $15,000 deductible, and awarded the appellant $25,000 in appeal costs.

The appellant condominium corporation brought an application to remove the respondent's cats from her unit, after a previous identical application by the unit owner was dismissed and not appealed.

The application judge dismissed the second application as an abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal, finding that the appellant was an active participant in the first application and that permitting the second application would be manifestly unfair to the respondent by forcing her to relitigate the same issue.