VANCOUVER -- In his dismissal of a lawsuit against hosts of a 2012 house party, a B.C. judge says the vehicle the teenagers were in when one died and one was seriously injured had been stolen for a "joy ride."
Calder McCormick, then 17, attended a house party on Salt Spring Island on Sept. 15 of that year. Early the next morning, he in a stolen vehicle driven by another teenage party-goer, court documents say.
The car went off the road and crashed, killing the driver, 18-year-old Ryan Plambeck, and leaving McCormick with life-altering injuries.
Earlier this year, McCormick filed a lawsuit against the people he says hosted the party, alleging underage teens were drinking at the property of Stephen and Lidia Pearson that night.
But in a decision posted Friday, the chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court found the Pearsons were not liable for McCormick's life-altering injuries.
"As hosts, the Pearsons had to take all reasonable steps to minimize the risks of harm to their guests, including the plaintiff," Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson wrote in his decision. "The standard is one of reasonableness, not perfection."
Hinkson says McCormick argued the hosts could have limited the number of guests at the party, monitored them more carefully or prohibited hard alcohol and drinking games.
"I find it unhelpful to list all of the things that the Pearsons might have done in an effort to avoid liability," Hinkson wrote in his reasons for judgment.
"Their duty of care cannot extend beyond the foreseeable. The question is whether the risk that arose here was foreseeable."
Hinkson says McCormick's arguments suggest the hosts should have anticipated all possibilities.
"That is simply not the way the world works," Hinkson wrote. "The duty is to act reasonably, not to act perfectly. It is never possible to eliminate all risks and the Pearsons were not required to do so."
Hinksons' decision also found that McCormack and Plambeck stole the car that later crashed and that that they weren't using it to drive home, but to "joy ride."
Hinkson added that based on results from an forensic alcohol consultant, he found that Plambeck, who was driving the car without a valid licence, was not intoxicated at the time of the crash.
Hinkson's decision says the vehicle "left the paved roadway, failing to negotiate a curve in the road because it was travelling too fast to safely make the curve."
According to the coroner's report on Plambeck's death, McCormick was "ejected during the incident and found nearby with serious injuries."
When the lawsuit was initially filed, McCormick's lawyer said his client had suffered a traumatic brain injury and currently resides in an assisted living facility.
"These types of injuries, they affect their memory, they affect their mental processing, and from what all our experts are saying, he's effectively competitively unemployable," Michael Wilhelmson told CTV News Vancouver in February.
"He will never have the life he had before, it's over."
If the lawsuit had succeeded, however, Hinkson said he would have awarded McCormick more than $5.8 million in damages.
