A North Vancouver senior has been awarded $93,000 in damages by a B.C. Supreme Court justice after she injured herself falling into an open water meter box set into a West Vancouver sidewalk.

Justice Leonard Marchand ordered the municipality to pay the damages to Patricia Amy Edith Curtiss in a decision handed down March 29.

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Marchand concluded that the district was responsible for not taking reasonable steps to ensure the safety of pedestrians using the sidewalk on 16th Street, where the meter box was set into the ground.

According to court documents, Curtiss – then 74 – was on her way to buy stamps from Shoppers Drug Mart on her lunch hour when “she fell into an open meter box that was within a sidewalk owned by the district, suffering serious injuries.”

Curtis was knocked unconscious in the fall, and was helped out of the water meter box by passersby. She suffered cuts, scrapes and bruising to her face, hands and legs, as well as lasting dizziness, headaches and anxiety, according to the court judgment.

Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The judge ruled that the district was responsible because the lid of the water meter box was only rated for pedestrian traffic – not vehicle traffic, despite being next to a parking lot frequented by traffic, including delivery trucks making their way to a store loading bay.

“In my view, it was reasonably foreseeable that vehicles driving over the meter box and lid, even infrequently, could damage the lid and cause it to fail unless the lid was properly designed to withstand the heavier loads associated with vehicular traffic,” wrote the judge.

The bent lid was most likely dislodged by vehicle traffic, creating a tripping hazard, wrote the judge, noting it was unlikely the 20-kilogram (40 lbs.) lid had been removed by a vandal.

The judge added the district could have taken relatively inexpensive measures – placing a barrier around the box to prevent traffic driving over it, or installing a lid rated for vehicle traffic – to fix the problem, but failed to do so.

Because the meter box was in an area close to medical buildings and a drugstore, those affected would likely include “people who are particularly vulnerable to serious injury in the event of a fall,” wrote the judge.

After Curtiss fell into the meter box, municipal staff placed a pylon on top of it as a warning. Staff suggested replacing the lid was a high priority, but after Curtiss launched her lawsuit, the municipality decided not to do that.

The judge’s award of $93,000 included an amount for general damages plus $3,800 for psychological counselling.