Insurer successfully defends city’s appeal over fire response times

Canada’s top court Thursday refused to hear an appeal in a case in which a Quebec municipality was found 25% liable for a fire that destroyed a commercial building when not enough firefighters were present after 10 minutes to fight the fire.

As is customary, the Supreme Court does not issue reasons for refusing leave to appeal. Thus, it’s the end of the road for the City of Trois-Rivières to overturn the Quebec Court of Appeal’s split 2-1 decision against it.

The city argued it was immune from civil liability based on a Quebec law that exempts municipalities from civil responsibility for fire damage if they don’t have their own firefighting services. The exemption applies only if municipalities have a risk coverage plan in place that guarantees a sufficient firefighter response time. A municipality must also show it carried out its plan.

Quebec’s government granted Trois-Rivières a time extension to modify its risk coverage plan because the municipality was trying to secure a full complement of firefighters, as opposed to having a mix of firefighters and police officers (acting as firefighters).

But the time extension did not exempt the City of Trois-Rivières from its basic commitment to follow its fire coverage plan; that is, to transport 10 firefighters to a fire in 10 minutes from two fire stations with a pumper and a ladder truck, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled.

“To the extent that the evidence allowed the judge to conclude that the strike force deployed by the city [to a June 2012 fire] was not 10 people within 10 minutes of the alert, I am of the opinion that this is a situation where [the City of Trois-Rivières] did not comply with the measures provided for in its plan for implementing the risk coverage plan,” the Appeal Court ruled.

The June 2012 fire occurred in a commercial and industrial sector of the City of Trois-Rivières, completely destroying a commercial building belonging to Déneigement FL (FL), insured by Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada (since acquired by Intact Insurance). The trial judge held the city 25% responsible for the damage suffered by FL due to the delay of the firefighters in arriving on the scene. Six firefighters were on the scene 10 minutes after the 911 call came through.

The city appealed and Déneigement FL and RSA successfully defended the appeal.

Trois-Rivières does not have its own firefighting service in response to a Supreme Court decision decades ago, which found municipalities could be held responsible for inadequate response times from their own fire departments. The city and some other municipalities opted not to set up their own fire services as a result, to contain liability risk.

The province amended its Fires Services Act to grant municipalities immunity from liability if they did not have their own services, provided that: 1) the municipalities adopted a plan for implementing a risk coverage scheme, and 2) they carried out the actions in their plans.

The courts found the City was not immune from liability, since it did not carry out actions set out in the plan; namely, that 10 firefighters would be on the scene of the fire within the first 10 minutes of the fire.

The fact that the city asked for an extension of time to change the composition of its firefighting service (i.e., from police-firefighters to solely firefighters) did not absolve it from making sure the response time conformed to its fire coverage plan, the Appeal Court found.

The dissenting opinion noted 11 firefighters were on the scene 12 minutes after the alert was given, so it was excessive to deprive the city of immunity for that. But the majority noted the conflagration of a fire, which makes it much more destructive, is at about the 10-minute mark, and hence, that is how the response time is established.

“The ratio of 10 firefighters in 10 minutes is therefore not arbitrary,” the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled. “When it comes to fighting a fire, every second counts.

“In short, the [trial] judge did not err in refusing to exonerate the city under [the immunity] section [of the Fire Safety Act].”

Feature image courtesy of iStock.com/THEGIFT777