Ruling finds inadequate maintenance, inspection, salting, plowing of snow in parking lot
The Ontario Superior Court has ruled that the occupiers’ shortcomings in properly salting and inspecting the parking spaces at a plaza and removing snow and ice from them were the probable cause of a woman’s fall and consequent injury.
In Sprowl v. First Capital, 2025 ONSC 3628, the 81-year-old plaintiff drove to the Bridgeport Plaza in Waterloo, Ontario, in January 2020. While walking on the parking lot back toward her car, she slipped on a patch of ice and fell. An ambulance took her to the hospital.
The plaintiff requested damages for a hip fracture that needed surgery. She alleged that the defendants, as the plaza’s occupiers, failed to keep the parking lot free of ice and snow and thus breached their duty of care to ensure that the plaza was reasonably safe for those entering the premises under ss. 1 and 3 of Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, 1990.
The defendants were First Capital (Bridgeport) Corporation, the plaza’s owner, and Mal-Mal Enterprise operating as Clintar Landscape Management, which First Capital hired to maintain the plaza during winter.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the defendants breached their duty under s. 3(1) of the Occupiers’ Liability Act and held 100 percent collective responsibility for the plaintiff’s damages.
The court found that the defendants’ negligence caused the plaintiff’s fall, that her damages would not have occurred but for that negligence, and that nothing in the evidence established the plaintiff’s contributory negligence.
First, the plaintiff claimed that Clintar used a superficial inspection process and poor plowing and salting methods. The court held that Clintar inadequately maintained the parking lot by failing to adequately plough the snow from the parking lot’s spaces, salt them, and inspect them so shoppers were reasonably safe while on the property.
Second, the plaintiff alleged shortcomings in Clintar’s weather monitoring system. The court decided that Clintar monitored the weather adequately, paid careful attention, and reacted in real time to weather predictions and changes.
Third, the plaintiff argued that Clintar failed to send salters on time. The court said Clintar did not act negligently in plowing before salting and reacted promptly and reasonably to the shifting, unpredictable circumstances.
Fourth, the plaintiff asserted that Clintar did not use enough salt. The court disagreed and determined that Clintar used sufficient salt, based on evidence from the record and the witnesses.
Fifth, the plaintiff claimed that First Capital failed to supervise Clintar’s work. The court found that First Capital breached s. 3(1), given that it did not meet the requirements of s. 6(1) of the Occupiers’ Liability Act.
The court accepted that First Capital reasonably entrusted the winter maintenance duties to Clintar, engaged a competent contractor, gave detailed contractual requirements, required the parking lot’s inspection, and received regular reports from Clintar.
However, the court concluded that First Capital failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that Clintar correctly did the work. The court saw no evidence that First Capital inspected Clintar’s work, responded to Clintar’s reports, provided directions beyond the contract’s content, or designated any employee to give such directions.
