Damages deducted for contributory negligence due to injured woman’s chosen footwear
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has affirmed a decision determining that a landlord was an occupier who should exercise reasonable care to protect against harm caused by an unusual danger arising from the lack of a handrail and a non-slip surface on steps.
The respondent in Chettri v Brunet, 2026 SKCA 71, was visiting a house that her daughter leased from the appellant, who owned multiple rental properties.
The tenant’s partner had previously slipped and fallen on the exterior steps of the house. The painted steps had five risers, no handrail, and no non-slip surface. The tenant’s partner said he could fix the steps if the landlord provided the materials. However, the landlord did not accept this offer.
One early morning, the respondent visitor intended to go outside to smoke. While wearing slippers, she walked on the exterior steps, lightly covered with dew. She slipped, fell, and injured her wrist and knee. She claimed damages for her injuries.
In her amended statement of claim against the appellant landlord, the visitor alleged that the accident’s cause was the landlord’s breaches of her statutory duty under s. 49 of Saskatchewan’s Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and the lease’s implied terms. Alternatively, the visitor asserted that the landlord’s negligence caused the accident.
Following a trial on liability and damages, on Jan. 30, 2025, the judge found the landlord liable to the visitor. After deducting 15 percent for the visitor’s contributory negligence due to her footwear, the judge awarded her damages of $50,385.83, plus costs and prejudgment interest.
The landlord appealed from the liability findings. Alternatively, she argued that the judge erred by finding the visitor only 15 percent contributorily negligent.
Judge’s findings affirmed
The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan dismissed the appeal. At the outset, the appeal court acknowledged that common law would apply because the province had no legislation governing an occupier’s liability to a visitor.
First, the appeal court found no error in the judge’s mixing of the language of the common law of occupiers’ liability with phrasing more frequently used for the common law of negligence.
Second, the appeal court saw no palpable and overriding error in the judge’s finding that the landlord had enough control over the steps to be an occupier under the law.
Third, the appeal court found no error in the judge’s treatment of unusual danger as the relevant standard. The appeal court ruled that the judge correctly stated the law concerning the landlord’s duty as an occupier to the visitor as a licensee.
Fourth, the appeal court found no reversible error in the judge’s finding of an unusual danger. The appeal court saw no basis to intervene with the judge’s findings that:
- A reasonable person would not expect to encounter steps of five or more risers without a handrail or a non-slip surface
- Even when there was an easy solution presented, the landlord did nothing to address the danger and the safety concerns, despite fully knowing about the state of the steps and about the incident where the tenant’s partner had fallen
“The National Building Code has been in force since 1965,” wrote Justice Georgina Jackson for the court. “Grandfathered or not, it has now become so much part of the safety culture of our society that visitors to premises have come to expect at least one handrail in the circumstances as presented here.”
Fifth, the appeal court found no basis to rule on the issue of causation, which the parties did not raise in their oral and written submissions.
Sixth, the appeal court saw no reason to intervene in the judge’s 15 percent reduction of the damages award based on his finding that the visitor wore her slippers despite understanding the danger and thus contributed to her own injuries. The appeal court noted that the landlord provided no basis for a rate other than 15 percent.
Seventh, the appeal court addressed the potential need for reform due to deficiencies in the common law of occupiers’ liability.
“Although the common law in this area has evolved over the last several decades, more may be required of the Court in future cases,” Jackson said. “However, in light of the recent steps taken by the Law Reform Commission, it is unnecessary for this Court to take on the larger task of reworking the common law, at least at this time.”
Lastly, the appeal court ordered the landlord to pay the visitor’s costs of $2,000.
