This blog post is brought to you by Ontario slip & fall lawyer Mark Yazdani. For further information about slip & falls, visit www.slipfall.ca.

The Yovanovich vs. City of Windsor court decision was released by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on May 31, 2007.

On the morning of Saturday June 16, 2001, Dr. Robert Yovanovich, an orthopaedic surgeon was cycling on Prince Road in Windsor at a reasonable speed. This portion of Prince Road had previously been closed to traffic for it’s reconstruction but re-opened in December 2000, despite being unfinished. The barricades and detour signs had been removed and the road was open to traffic.

Dr. Yovanovich suddenly heard the sound of a dump truck that was approaching from his rear. As he moved to the right to avoid the dump truck, he cycled over an elevated catch basin and was thrown into the air and then into the ground.

As a result of this fall, Dr. Yovanovich suffered a cut to his left elbow, a bruise to his left knee, a separated left shoulder, a mild compression of a nerve in the neck with symptoms in his right hand in the web space between the thumb and index finger and a compression injury to his S1 nerve root on the right side which resulted in sciatic numbness and burning in his right leg. He has a left shoulder deformity arising from the shoulder separation.

Dr. Yovanovich hired a Windsor personal injury lawyer and sued the City of Windsor for negligence.

The court noted that City of Windsor had a duty to keep the roadway in a reasonable state of repair and safety. The city knew or should have known that the catch basin was elevated 2 inches above the road surface and that this elevation posed a unacceptable risk of harm to the public. The court found that the City failed to employ signs warning road users of dangers that lay ahead on the unfinished road. It failed to warn cyclists about elevated catch basins. Finally, the city failed to conduct adequate inspections to ensure that the road in this area was safe for road users, including cyclists.

As a result, the court found that the City of Windsor was liable to Dr. Yovanovich for damages. They awarded him the following:

• $100,000 – General Damages
• $714,450 – Future Lost Income

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