In Stamatopoulos et al. v Pspib Agincourt Inc. et al., 2026 ONSC 1380, the Ontario Superior Court granted a summary judgment application in favour of Wal-Mart after CCTV footage confirmed the fall was caused by a collision between two shoppers. The Court confirmed that occupiers are not held to a standard of perfection under the Occupiers’ Liability Act, and found that the Plaintiff’s fall was not caused by anything Wal-Mart did or failed to do.

Background

In October 2022, Angelikis Stamatopoulos sued Wal-Mart after slipping and falling while shopping in one of their stores located in Scarborough, Ontario. Wal-Mart brought a motion for summary judgment on the basis they were not responsible for her fall – they argued CCTV footage showed the Plaintiff fell because she tripped over another patron’s wheeled basket, rather than anything that Wal-Mart or its employees did or failed to do. The Plaintiff defended the summary judgment application on the basis that (1) Wal-Mart had not put its best foot forward (2) whether Wal-Mart’s acts or omissions created a hazard is a triable issue and (3) significant issues of credibility remain that only a trial judge can assess.

With respect to the incident, the applications judge found that:

• Patrick Forbes, a Wal-Mart employee, was standing near the right-hand side of aisle 5’s entrance and was pushing a shopping cart loaded with items for restocking. The cart was perpendicular to the aisle so that its front end protruded 42 cm into it, blocking its entrance slightly from the right.
• Several people, including the Plaintiff’s husband, walked past the cart into aisle 5 while Mr. Forbes was leaning over it and looking down at a device used by Wal-Mart employees to locate merchandise and inventory.
• The Plaintiff then entered aisle 5 from the left side, closely followed by another patron who was wheeling a blue basket. The Plaintiff tripped over the blue basket and fell diagonally into a different Wal-Mart employee, who then fell to the ground with her.
• The Plaintiff did not come into physical contact with any employee or store structure until she fell on the Wal-Mart employee.

Issue

Was there a genuine issue for trial under the Occupiers’ Liability Act?

Test

As outlined in Hyrniak v Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, there is no genuine issue for trial if the court through summary judgment can reach “a fair and just determination on the merits”. Such a determination is warranted if the process (a) allows the court to make the necessary findings of fact, and to apply the law to the facts and (b) is a proportionate, more expeditious and less expensive means to achieve a just result.

When bringing a claim for an alleged breach of an occupier’s duty under Section 3(1) of the OLA, the moving party must pinpoint some act or failure on the part of the occupier that caused the plaintiff’s injury.[1] Occupier’s standard of care is reasonableness, not perfection or unrealistic or impractical precautions.[2] Where the occupier is a grocer or similar retailer, it may be liable for injuries that result from creating a limited space for customers circulating with shopping carts, given the reasonable foreseeability of injury.[3]

Decision

The Court found no genuine issue for trial because the evidence showed on a balance of probabilities that the Plaintiff’s fall was not caused by anything Wal-Mart did or failed to do. It characterized the incident as an “awful but unforeseeable accident” that did not involve Wal-Mart at all and which Wal-Mart could not have taken reasonable precautions against.

While the surrounding area was congested immediately before the incident, the applications judge was not persuaded that the shopping cart was the primary driver of that congestion. Rather, the more relevant factor was the number of patrons “milling about” and trying to enter the aisle at the same time. CCTV footage showed that even with Mr. Forbes’ shopping cart slightly protruding the right side of the aisle, there was still room for more than one person to enter the aisle from its left. The collision was between two patrons, and the Plaintiff never made contact with Mr. Forbes’ shopping cart.

Takeaways

• Occupier’s standard of care is reasonableness, not perfection or unrealistic or impractical precautions. It is unlikely liability will flow against an occupier under the OLA where any precautions taken by them could not have avoided the incident.
• While Stamatopoulos is an Ontario case, the same principle applies in Alberta – the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench (as it was) confirmed in Bzdziuch v Loblaws, 2019 ABQB 984 that an occupier must take reasonable care to keep the premises safe. Simply because injury occurred as a result of a foreseeable risk does not, by itself, prove liability against an occupier.
• Vendors should immediately preserve all CCTV footage capturing an incident once it occurs, which can arm counsel with crucial evidence to effectively defend the claim.