WHEREAS the Province is solely responsible for the planning, construction, maintenance and signing of all provincial highways; AND WHEREAS municipalities currently can be enjoined in a legal action concerning a provincial highway through a third party notice; AND WHEREAS municipalities and the Municipal Insurance Association of BC can spend significant amounts of money to be removed from the legal action: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM petition the Province on behalf of BC local governments to amend the Negligence Act so that municipalities cannot be enjoined as third parties for legal claims on provincial highways.
Ministry of Attorney General The Ministry of Attorney General appreciates UBCM raising the issue of highways liability. The Ministry will do further policy and legal analysis on this issue in order to determine what the implications would be of implementing this resolution. The UBCM has previously raised issues about the Negligence Act focused on other amendments to eliminate the system of joint and several liability and replace it with proportionate liability, under which defendants are responsible only to the degree to which they contributed to the loss. This issue may be considered as part of an analysis of those other proposed amendments.
Municipal Insurance Association of BC As you can appreciate this issue is also of interest to the MIABC and its members because we incur considerable, pointless costs every year defending claims arising form Provincial Highways brought against local governments. It is extremely rare for these claims to possess any legal merit. Although this is frustrating, even more disappointing is the fact that the vast majority of meritless claims are brought at the behest of a Provincial Crown Corporation, ICBC. Our Board of Directors adopted a resolution supporting the UBCMs efforts on this issue. We look forward to learning of the progress it makes. It goes without saying; that we will be pleased to provide assistance should the UBCM desire it.