An incident at a notable Surrey parking lot prompted a B.C. woman to bring a legal claim against the City, which didn’t pan out the way she had hoped.
Details of the incident were made public in a recent BC Civil Resolution Tribunal dispute decision.
According to the decision, the applicant, KM, claimed that her vehicle was damaged because of the City’s poor road work. She said she sustained damage to her wheel well while turning near a curb, and claimed $5,000 in damages for repairs, an insurance deductible, and “stress.”
The City of Surrey said that if KM’s vehicle got damaged, it was her fault due to “improper driving” and argued it wasn’t responsible.
On Oct. 20, 2024, the applicant was driving in the Surrey Arts Centre parking lot. Google Street View images show that most of the parking lot has yellow paint to indicate where the curb begins.
KM provided photos of the parking lot entrance, which showed raised curbs around the sidewalk on either side of the driveway on the way to the parking lot.
“The edges of the curbs are painted yellow. Behind these yellow curbs, which appear to be a standard size, are garden beds. One of these garden beds contains a large rock placed in the dirt. This rock is perhaps an inch behind the curb’s inside edge,” the tribunal said.
KM said she struck that rock with her passenger-side wheel well while she was turning right into the parking lot. She reported the incident almost one month later, on Nov. 15.
In response, the City sent a park technician to inspect the parking lot. They inspected it on Feb. 25, 2025, but did not observe any hazards or dangerous curbs or rocks that required remediation.
Interestingly, despite the City claiming it wasn’t at fault, it did install some warning signage on the garden beds following the incident; however, the City says the signs were for pedestrians, not drivers.
In trying to determine whether or not KM was entitled to her claim of $5,000 in damages, the tribunal looked at whether or not the City was negligent in maintaining its parking lot. The City argued that KM had not provided a legal basis for her claims.
Examining photos that were submitted, the tribunal said those images didn’t indicate anything “obviously wrong” with the parking lot. The rock in question was behind a brightly painted curb.
The tribunal sympathized with KM that entering the parking lot may have been difficult. But maintained that the “curb and rock were there to be seen.”
The tribunal added that she was likely not exercising “ordinary care” when she turned into the lot. The City had no other reports of similar incidents.
The tribunal dismissed all claims.
Have you ever navigated the Surrey Arts Centre parking lot?