Personal Injury
Roadway hazards
Crashes and injuries caused by potholes, road defects, ice, debris, missing signage, or unsafe construction zones.
Not every collision is caused by another driver. Potholes, broken pavement, untreated ice, debris, washed-out lines, missing or obscured signage, and poorly managed construction zones cause serious injuries every year.
Claims of this kind are brought against the authority or contractor responsible for maintaining the road, and they carry deadlines that are much shorter than an ordinary injury claim.
Notice to a municipality is ten days
Where a claim arises from the failure to keep a highway or sidewalk in repair, written notice must generally be given to the municipality within ten days of the incident. The requirement is strict, with limited exceptions, so notice should be sent while the facts are still being gathered rather than afterwards.
Minimum maintenance standards
Ontario regulations set minimum maintenance standards for road authorities, including timelines for repairing potholes of a given size and for treating ice and snow. Compliance with those standards is a defence, so the claim usually turns on inspection logs, patrol records, work orders, and weather data obtained from the authority and its contractors.
Preserving the evidence
Photographs of the hazard with something for scale, the exact location, dash camera footage, the police report number, and the names of any witnesses. Roads get repaired quickly after an incident, and once the defect is gone it is difficult to prove what it looked like.
Questions clients ask
Who is responsible — the city or the province?
It depends on the road. Provincial highways, regional roads, municipal streets, and private property are each maintained by different parties, and construction zones are often the contractor's responsibility. Notice is frequently given to more than one party while responsibility is confirmed.
The pothole was repaired the next day. Is there still a claim?
Possibly. Repair records can themselves help establish that the defect existed and was known. The sooner the matter is reviewed, the more of that record can be secured.
This page is general information about Ontario law, not legal advice for your situation. Book a consultation for advice on your own matter.
Consultation
Find out where your claim stands.
A short, confidential conversation is usually enough to tell you whether there is a claim, what the deadlines are, and what the next step would cost you.
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