Judge

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Small Claims Court Judge Daniel Dortélus ruled recently in favour of the City of Côte St. Luc in a case involving snow having been dumped on a local lawn.

The Suburban has heard numerous complaints over the years about snow dumping at council meetings and in phone calls on residential properties within our coverage area, and several cases have ended up in court.

A resident sued CSL for $15,000, saying his lawn on Robinson Avenue was damaged as a result of snow thrown onto his property in 2021. The allegation was that on April 7 of that year, the snow dumping by employees resulted in damage to the lawn and earth in front of his apartment building.

The plaintiff argued that during the winter of 2021, “the defendant’s employees accumulated significant quantities of snow, gravel and calcium on the plaintiff’s land, despite the existence of other less damaging alternatives” and that they “destroyed the plaintiff’s land with machinery, snow and calcium [and] acted abusively and unreasonably.”

The plaintiff also said that “in 2019 following a complaint filed with the city, it replaced the lawn which was damaged by snow during snow removal work.

“I have repeatedly over the years complained by letter and verbally about the practice of the city snow removal employees to collect all the snow between CSL Road and Parkview and proceed to dump it on the façade and entrance of the building,” the plaintiff testified, according to court documents. “Because of the high concentration of calcium accumulated from repeated dumping of the salted road snow during the winter months, my grass is totally destroyed.”

CSL denied responsibility and argued that “any city or municipality has the right to spray snow on adjacent private properties, under section 69 of the Municipal Powers Act (RLRQ c. C-47.1),” that “any local municipality may throw snow covering a public road onto adjoining private lands,” and that the provision “does not specify a maximum quantity of snow that can be thrown on a property and in no way obliges a municipality to adopt alternatives to snow throwing in order to avoid a situation where an owner could receive a greater quantity of snow than its neighbours.”

CSL said it “was not negligent in its snow removal operations, that it committed no fault and that it meets the standards that can be expected in such circumstances.”

The city also “suggested that the damage caused to the lawn is the result of major work that was carried out on the property in 2018 and 2019” and that the Public Works Department “communicated directly with the Plaintiff on several occasions to explain to him that snow removal operations near his property do not differ from regular operations since it does not present any special circumstances.”

The judge ruled that the plaintiff “failed to demonstrate that the city or its nominees committed a fault” and rejected the complaint.

“The evidence presented by [the plaintiff], which essentially consists of his testimony and the photos produced in evidence, is clearly insufficient to establish that the lawn on his property was damaged or damaged by the snow and residue thrown during the snow removal operations on Robinson Avenue in 2021,” the judgment says. “The photos transmitted with the formal notice of April 7, 2021 do not support the claim with regard to the extent and nature of the damage nor when it was caused. As for the estimate produced which was prepared on the eve of the trial for work carried out a year ago by [the plaintiff’s] company, it in no way improves [the plaintiff’s] position.”

The plaintiff was ordered to pay legal costs of $317.