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#19135
B.C. TRIBUNAL rules mere PMC is "OCCUPIER" falling short of warning & pre-empting THEFT of BIKE 2020/10/27 15:55  
Not legal advice, as usual.

Condo/strata/Building Scheme Boards & their insurers, justifiably get fits about liability for loss or injury claimed incurred within the common elements. ( For example, just imagine the issues of a large unattended waterfront with docks & roadways but no governance body. Gating to lock out non-owners actually does not itself address loss nor injury suffered by co-owners nor volunteers. And some litigation has even held 'occupier liability' where some risk-taking jackass hits some un-warned shallow rocks while diving outside monumented survey boundaries from a dock within the 'occupier' common lands ! . . )

Amidst disputes over any occupier's "DUTY of care" many legal outcomes could be described as eccentric or idiosyncratic, looking heavily dependent on ambiguous factual findings and adjudicators' whims . . .

Bushfield v Remi Realty Inc 2020 - British Columbia's CRT Civil Resolution Tribunal

Apparently being sued free-standing for breach of duty of care as an alleged “occupier” of strata common element premises, a B.C. PMC property management company is held liable for July 2019 loss of a S.R.L. self-represented litigant “resident”s bicycle stolen from a dedicated strata storage area for bikes.

At CRT despite absence of contractual privity between the claimant “resident’ and the PMC, that PMC company loses despite defences apparently raised :

that there literally is no privity between us as the Strata's contractor and resident claimant bike owner;

that whether or not in a relationship of privity , we as PMC are NOT “occupiers” of the strata’s common elements including the locked bike storage;

that there was no reasonable foreseeability of the loss because the claimant’s bike theft ( after padlock cut off ) is “first of a kind” rather than one of a number of incidents like mere lock malfunctions; or

conversely that we specifically priorly warned our client’s Board of Directors BEFORE the theft
despite the fact that such warning magically fails to appear in the Board Minutes prepared by the client. That as managers by our warning to Directors and prompt door repairs, we met the statutory DUTY of care - if - IF AT ALL OWED !

CRT is crucially silent about there had been any PRIOR POSTED NOR PRIOR PUBLISHED WARNINGS by it and/or the strata corporation to bike storers. Nor to deter thieves.

It's also silent as to whether or not there had been erected - beforehand - any actual or dummy CCTV devices after certain prior "suspicious" doorway incidents enough to at least dis-comfort potential bike snatchers. . . .

Slope-shouldering by whom ?

B.C.'s CRT Tribunal refuses to be persuaded by the PMC that anyway it should be exculpated by what it claims had been an express warning to the Board of Directors allegedly at a Board Meeting; but the Board's Minutes are conveniently silent. That the warning had been allegedly ignored to save bucks ? Tough to prove a phantom warning without independent evidence or filed report ?

This B.C. outcome may surprise some and leans heavily on a prior B.C. Supreme Court decision. But it reminds that elsewhere with similar Occupier Liability laws concurrently there can be multiple "occupiers" for example like giant ski concessions on head-leased government lands

CONDOMINIUM INJURY OR LOSS CLAIMANTS may have a tough time - maybe an almost impossible burden - to identify or make anything stick against a contractor without very direct & dramatic causal relationship eg paver's steamroller crushes owner's properly parked BMW . . Was an Ontario wintertime slip & fall injury claim now litigated timely . . . ? Did it take years to discover untimely that snow clearance had been contracted at arms-length ? And remember what the elevator company's lawyers did with the "occupiers liability" aspect of an injury claim involving a condo elevator amidst what was apparently a prolonged erratic performance alternating with "being serviced" ?

The CRT adjudication : Bushfield v. Remi Realty Inc., 2020 BCCRT 1180 issued Oct 20/20 http://canlii.ca/t/jb4ml

An alert Vernon B.C news report :

from Vernon ( B.C. ) News Oct 26/20 is “Tribunal finds strata management company responsible for bike theft” by Ben Bulmer https://infotel.ca/newsitem/tribunal-finds-strata-management-company-responsible-for-bike-theft/ it77999
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