In 2017, a custom sprayer operator from a local farm supply company was crossing a private bridge on a farm with a self-propelled sprayer when the bridge broke. The sprayer fell into the river that ran beneath the bridge. The operator was trapped underwater but managed to escape his machine. The sprayer sustained very significant damage. Over the course of 11 days in 2023 and 2024, a trial was held in the Superior Court of Justice to determine who was at fault for the incident and what compensation might be owing for damage to the sprayer. A decision was rendered at the end of March this year.
The sprayer involved in the case weighed over 15 tons when empty and had 100-foot booms. It had been purchased in 2014 for just under $343,000. The operator of the sprayer was a long-time employee of the farm supply company and had operated the sprayer (and only that sprayer) for four years. He had finished spraying one field on the customer’s farm and was moving to another field across the bridge when the collapse occurred. The sprayer was about two-thirds of the way across when wooden planking broke beneath the sprayer’s front right tire. The sprayer rolled completely and landed upright in the deep river below. The cab was submerged and quickly filled with water, but the operator found a way out. He escaped with cuts to his hands from broken glass.
The farm bridge had originally been constructed in the early 1900s by the same family that owns and operates the farm today. In 1980, the bridge was rebuilt with concrete abutments placed at each end of the bridge. The river was spanned using five steel beams spaced to create a supporting structure 10-feet-wide. A wooden deck was placed over the beams with wooden planks running parallel with the beams on each side of the deck to hold the deck together. In all, the wood deck stretched 57 feet from one side of the river to the other. The deck extended in an overhang of approximately 3 feet beyond the edge of the steel beams on each side of the bridge.
No building permit was required for the bridge; the only legal requirement for the private bridge was that it be high enough above the river to allow water to pass under the bridge if the river flooded. The unchallenged evidence of the farm family was that the bridge was crossed between 40 and 50 times a day by large-sized farm equipment weighing from 15 to 40 tons.
After the bridge collapse, the sprayer sat mostly submerged in the river for 10 hours. It was extricated from the water and taken back to the equipment retailer for an assessment of the damage to the machine and an estimate of the cost of repair. A consultant engaged by the insurer for the farm supply company didn’t believe the sprayer was a write-off; he thought the unit could be repaired for roughly $332,000 including taxes. The cost of a new replacement sprayer was over $435,000. The insurer gave the farm supplier the following options: 1) repair the sprayer; 2) purchase a replacement sprayer of similar value to the damaged sprayer; or, 3) take the estimated cost of the repairs and apply it to the purchase of a new sprayer. The farm supply company chose the third option and purchased a new sprayer.
Having paid out the estimated cost of repairing the damaged sprayer, the insurer for the farm supply company had a right of subrogation meaning that it could now pursue a claim to recover the money it had paid out. The insurer sued the farm corporation that owned the bridge, claiming that the farm was at fault for the collapse because: the overhang was unsupported; the bridge was in a state of disrepair including rot; the wooden deck was free to shift over the steel beams; and, there was no warning that the overhang of the wooden deck was unsupported. The farm corporation defended the action arguing that the incident was caused by driver error. Provided that a vehicle was kept centered over the steel beams, the farm corporation contended that the bridge could support equipment much heavier than the sprayer had been at the moment of the collapse.
The Court sided with the farm corporation and ruled that driver error was the cause of the incident and of any losses suffered by the farm supply company. Although there was evidence of some rot in the wooden deck of the bridge, the bridge did not break at the point of the rotted wood. Instead, the bridge broke only where the sprayer tire reached a point two-thirds across the overhang. If the tires had been centered on the beams, the bridge would not have collapsed whether the wood on the overhang was rotten or brand new. The Court found that the likely explanation for the sprayer veering toward the edge of the bridge was driver inadvertence. A warning to keep the machine in the centre of the bridge and off the overhang wouldn’t have helped: the sprayer operator already knew he needed to keep the vehicle centred when crossing the bridge. The insurer’s subrogated action for damages was dismissed.
Read the decision at: 2025 ONSC 1996 (CanLII).
