Slips and falls happen. They happen in shopping malls, at sports facilities, in restaurants and they often happen in grocery stores. It is important to remember that while falls sometimes occur without anybody being responsible for what is just an accident, sometimes they are preventable. An occupier (the owner of a grocery store, for example) has a duty to take steps to protect visitors to its premises – this is known as ‘reasonable care’. In determining whether an occupier has discharged its duty, one must determine whether or not the danger was “foreseeable”.
It is important for Canadian lawyers to be knowledgeable about what constitutes reasonable care and when an occupier’s duty has been breached. This is particularly important when someone sustains injuries that ought to be compensated.
In Kerr v. Loblaws Inc., the plaintiff was grocery shopping when she slipped and fell on a single grape near a display at a store owned by the defendant. When she fell, she broke her ankle in three places and strained her knee. The Court of Appeal held that the duty imposed by the Occupier’s Liability Act is to take reasonable care in the circumstances to make the premises safe. The factors relevant to an assessment of ‘reasonable care’ will be very specific to each situation.
In Garofalo v Canada Safeway Ltd., 1998 CarswellOnt 339., the plaintiff slipped and fell on a piece of plum on the floor. The court held that the affirmative duty imposed on the occupier does not extend to the removal of every possible danger. It does not require the defendant to maintain a constant surveillance or lookout for potential danger. The defendant may meet its duty to take reasonable care if it has a plan for the regular control and supervision of the premises, including the produce floor.
In Winters v. Loblaws Supermarkets Ltd., [2005] O.J. No. 3406, 141 A.C.W.S. (3d) 880, the plaintiff fell on moisture that had accumulated around the entrance of a grocery store. The moisture was presumably the result of pedestrian traffic into and out of the store on a winter day. While the plaintiff identified ways in which the defendant could have made the entranceway more safe, the court found that the defendant had a reasonable system in place to protect its customers that included the regular use of a wet-vac and mopping, and that many other people had used that entrance without issue. The court therefore found that the system was operating properly, and liability was not attributed to the defendant.
In Hussein v. Loblaws Supermarkets Ltd., [2000] O.J. No. 2062, 97 A.C.W.S. (3d) 449, upheld at the Court of Appeal, the court found the Defendant liable when the customer slipped on water near a cash register which had come from melting snow. The court found that while the occupier had installed mats at the entranceway to prevent falls on the slippery floor, the occupier was aware that water was being tracked beyond these mats and accumulating at the cash register area, the busiest part of the store. While there were mops available in the store, there were no mops at the front of the store to quickly deal with accumulating water.
Slips and falls happen, and they are often preventable. It is important to reach out to a lawyer for legal advice if you sustain injuries in a slip or fall.
