A woman claiming $5,000 in damages after walking into a streetlight pole in Burnaby has lost her case in front of the Civil Resolution Tribunal.
Tara Scott told the tribunal she had been walking beside Lougheed Highway near Government Street on the evening of Nov. 11 when she walked into a streetlight pole in the middle of the sidewalk, fracturing a bone in her foot, according to a CRT ruling this week.
Scott said it was dark and she had been walking quickly to stay warm.
The pole was also hard to see, she said, because the streetlight was burned out, the pole was painted black, and tree branches around it were overgrown.
Scott said the injury rendered her unable to work for two months and forced her to withdraw from college.
She sued the City of Burnaby at the CRT for $5,000 in lost wages.
The city denied it was liable in the case.
It said it first learned the streetlight was not working when Scott reported it after her injury, and it was then fixed in less than a week according to a city policy for repairing streetlights as issues are reported.
Tribunal member Kristin Gardner ruled the evidence, including nighttime photos of the pole, didn’t establish the city was negligent.
"Overall, I find that the sidewalk was in reasonably safe condition for people exercising ordinary care for their own safety, which I find generally includes looking in the direction that they are walking," Garner wrote in the ruling.
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