Trapped underwater inside a crop sprayer after a farm bridge collapsed beneath him and sent the machine tumbling into the Napanee River, Colin Denyes searched for a way out.
The cab had filled with water. The door was pinned shut. Only an air pocket inside the submerged machine allowed him to breathe.
If the water had gotten in, there had to be a way out.
Denyes felt around in the darkness, slicing his fingers on broken glass, until he found an escape route through the wreckage. He made his way out and swam to shore.
Nearly nine years later, the accident that nearly claimed his life has ended in an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.
In a decision released on May 27, the court found the farm on which the incident took place, Sutton Farms (Nacona) Ltd. in Napanee, liable for more than $423,000 in damages. This ruling overturned an earlier trial decision that had dismissed a lawsuit brought by Deynes’s employer, the agricultural spraying company TCO Agromart Ltd., and its insurer.
The court concluded the farm failed to disclose a hidden structural danger beneath a private bridge crossing the Napanee River.
“This appeal engages the issue of when and in what circumstances an owner or occupier of land has a duty to warn about hidden dangers,” Justice Peter Osborne wrote for the three-judge panel.
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