A parishioner and volunteer at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in West Vancouver has failed in his bid to sue the church after suffering a fall and broken arm during a religious ritual.
Patrick Hickey, a member of the church for 25 years and Extraordinary Minister of Communion, sued the church along with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver and Archbishop Michael Miller.
Hickey attends the church daily and distributes communion three or four times a month, according to court documents. The fall and injury happened on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2010.
Hickey was in the choir loft and administering the ashes to the organist and choir director. The ceremony involves making the sign of the cross on a parishioner’s forehead using the ashes of palm leaves that were blessed on the previous Palm Sunday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent.
Following the administering of the ashes, however, Hickey said in his examination for discovery that he “caught his heel” and was “propelled off the platform.”
His arm became lodged in stair railings, resulting in the broken bone.
In his affidavit sworn in March of this year, Hickey said there were loose cords that ran from the organ along the edge of the raised platform on the day he fell but he did not know what he had caught his heel on.
Under the Occupier’s Liability Act, a building owner must take reasonable care to ensure the premises are safe.
Hickey, now 78, had the onus of proving, on a balance of probabilities, that the church was negligent or in breach of duty under the act.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden noted in his July 10 ruling that a report from a retired deputy chief building inspector found the platforms were in compliance with the provincial building code.
“The front edge of the platforms were finished with a ribbed rubber strip to provide a tactile warning of the edge of the platform and indicate the elevation difference to users. It is not considered to be a tripping hazard,” he wrote.
In his reasons for judgment, Bowden agreed to the church’s request that the case be dismissed.
“Even accepting the plaintiff’s evidence that cords were present where his heel caught, in my view, the plaintiff has failed to establish that cords in the choir loft were a hazard.
Even if the court were to conclude that the cords referred to by the plaintiff in his affidavit presented a hazard, the plaintiff must establish that they caused him to trip and fall. In my view he has not done so,” Bowden wrote.
“As the plaintiff’s uncontroverted evidence is that he does not know what caused him to trip and fall, he cannot establish that the defendant caused his fall. The plaintiff has also failed to establish that the defendant was negligent or in breach of a duty under the Act,” Bowden concluded, tossing out the case.
