Turns out, if you want to sue the City of Victoria when a pothole busts your bumper or ball joint, you have to first give the road maintenance department a fair chance to fix it.
Claiming her car ended up with $1,400 worth of damages after hitting a pothole at the corner of Fort and Yates streets on Boxing Day in 2022, Adele Malo and her partner David Drinkwater sued the city through the Civil Resolution Tribunal.
But the adjudicator tossed out the case, saying that the pothole wasn’t reported to the city by the duo until two weeks after the fateful kerplunk. By that time, the city had already responded to a separate report of the problem pit and had promptly filled it in.
The city’s policy is to fill the potholes when reported. Local governments can be sued for operational decisions — like a choice not to clear snow from an area — but not for policies enacted in good faith.
Malo had driven into the pothole on Dec. 26, 2022, but did not report it to the city until Drinkwater submitted a claim on her behalf on Jan. 10, 2023.
In the meantime, someone else reported the pothole to the city on Dec. 27. On Dec. 28, a crew was dispatched to fill the hole. On Jan. 4, it was milled and paved.
Malo and Drinkwater attempted to argue that the city should have known about the poor state of its roads due to media coverage on this topic. The city countered it has a complaints-driven system to respond to these sorts of things — this is city policy.
In this case, the city followed its policy, and filled the pothole when reported, so the adjudicator found the city cannot be held liable.
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