Duty of care addressed in recent slip and fall claim

Some very interesting case law out of the Ontario Superior Court (Caron v. OMERS Realty Corp) may influence large, indoor, slip and fall claims. A civil servant, Moira Caron, slipped on the kitchen floor at her workplace and sued for $2.9 million dollars.

What’s interesting about this case is that the Defendants presented expert testimony on the co-efficient of the friction. As stated in the article “The co-efficient of friction is a measure of how much force you need to apply in order to slide one object (such as the bottom of a person’s foot) over a surface. The higher the coefficient of friction, the greater the slip resistance.” The expert opined that his finding of 0.7 was good enough and the courts accepted this and found that the Defendants met their duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act.

Building owners and tenants have a legal duty to make their premises safe but that duty “requires neither perfection nor unrealistic or impractical precautions against known risks,” Justice Roger wrote.

To learn more about preventing slips, trips or falls, please contact AMSC claims at 1-780-310-AUMA or claims [at] auma.ca (claims[at]auma[dot]ca)