Court of Appeal Gets It Right: Fordham v. Dutton Dunwich

Written on December 11, 2014.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has set aside the trial decision in Fordham v. Dutton Dunwich, and in doing so has again affirmed the long line of Supreme Court of Canada authority defining the limits of the municipal duty or care for road repair, and restored some sense of predictability in Ontario cases, particularly against rural municipal road authorities. Sadly, the trial decision was yet another example of the lengths to which our Trial Courts seem prepared to go to find liability against a municipal defendant, ala Morsi v. York, et al. Read the CA decision here: Fordham v. Dutton Dunwich The importance of the affirmation that the duty of care is only to maintain the highway in a state of repair such that the ordinary driver exercising reasonable care may pass in safety, cannot be understated. Without such a limit, municipalities become nothing more than an insurer of motorists, regardless of their own folly.