Woman sued West Coast city after walking into street light pole

A woman who broke a bone in her foot after walking into a street light pole sued Burnaby, a city on the West Coast of Canada, blaming it for her accident.

Tara Scott took the City of Burnaby to court in a BC Civil Resolution Tribunal hearing, claiming $5,000 in damages from lost wages due to being out of work because of her injury.

She “fractured the proximal left 5^th metatarsal bone.”

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Scott sued Burnaby, claiming that the street light pole was in the middle of the sidewalk and that the city was negligent because the light wasn’t working. She says the pole was painted black and that overgrown tree branches made the pole challenging to see in the dark.

Burnaby denied the accusations of negligence, saying it had first learned that the light was out when Scott reported it after her injury.

According to the facts of the case, Scott was walking on the sidewalk along Lougheed Highway near Government Street between 6 and 6:30 pm. Photos show that the sidewalk is relatively wide, shared between cyclists and pedestrians.

The incident occurred on November 11 of last year, so it was relatively dark at the time. Scott says she was walking quickly to stay warm when she collided with the pole in the middle of the sidewalk.

The City of Burnaby uses a complaints-based system for street light maintenance, so there’s no active monitoring taking place pertaining to street light maintenance.

According to the tribunal decision, the City of Burnaby did not owe Scott a duty of care concerning the broken light.

She also argued that the post for the light shouldn’t have been painted black and should have had reflective stickers on it and that the branches around it should have been trimmed.

Based on photos submitted as evidence, the tribunal did not agree that the branches hid the street light pole. The tribunal also didn’t understand why it was unreasonable for the light poles to be painted black.

“I find the pole with the broken light is readily visible, given the light cast from the streetlights on either side of it and the well-lit intersection just beyond the broken light and SkyTrain station across the street,” reads the tribunal decision.

“I find there was sufficient ambient light that the black pole was there to be seen, even without reflective materials.”

The tribunal dismissed Scott’s claims and the dispute.