Province ordered to pay injured U.S. man $2.2m
VICTORIA — The B.C. Supreme Court has ordered the B.C. government to pay $2.2 million in damages to a young Phoenix man who was severely injured when he climbed onto a wall overlooking Victoria’s Inner Harbour, swung around a corroded lamppost and fell to the causeway below.
On Tuesday, Justice George Macintosh found the Provincial Capital Commission was negligent and 35 per cent at fault for the March 31, 2007 accident that left David Mackey, then a 17-year-old high school student, with severe traumatic brain injury. The judge found Mackey was 65 per cent at fault for swinging on the lamppost in a dangerous location.
“It’s obvious if he did not get up on the baluster and swing on the lamppost, the accident would not have happened,” Macintosh wrote in his 64-page judgment.
Macintosh found the lamppost was corroded to the core. When Mackey swung around it, the post came loose, tottered and he fell onto the concrete walkway below.
In a busy tourist area, where people congregate at all hours of the day, it was an accident waiting to happen, Macintosh wrote. Because the Provincial Capital Commission has been dissolved by statute, the provincial Crown is now the defendant.
Court heard Mackey was one of 24 choir students from Paradise Valley High School visiting Vancouver and Victoria. Mackey, who was described as well-behaved and well-mannered, had swung around lampposts in Gastown, where the posts were stable and at street level.
On March 31, as the students walked to the Inner Harbour, another student, Ryan Ramsay, hopped onto the baluster near the Tourist Information Centre. Ramsay walked around the lamppost but did not swing on it.
Mackey then got up. Ramsay had turned away, but when he looked back, Mackey was no longer there and the lamppost was leaning toward the water.
During the civil trial, experts testified the skirt of the lamppost was never bolted to the baluster. The pole was corroded. Although it was painted every year, the lamppost had never been maintained or inspected to see if it was intact.
“By the time of the accident, the lamppost was so poorly supported that it was almost free-standing, waiting for something, perhaps a strong wind, to topple it,” Macintosh wrote.
The accident probably would not have happened if the lamppost had been maintained and bolted in place, he concluded.
The accident damaged his frontal and temporal lobes. He was in a coma for a week and doctors were not sure if he would survive.
Damages were reduced to take into account the fact Mackey was found 65-per-cent negligent.