RM willing to settle after Manitoba honey farm building damaged

The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie has conceded a staffer caused a flood in an under-construction building on a honey farm and is prepared to settle with the owner, court filings say.

Lawyer Jeffrey King, working on behalf of Arlene Harris, filed the lawsuit in the Court of King’s Bench in January, seeking damages to be determined at trial over the January 2023 incident.

Harris and her family extract and sell honey on the farm, the court filings said.

Her court papers said the RM installed a main water line in 2011 to service Harris’s property and for the future construction of a farm building.

The line was not connected to any other lines or a meter and its valve was left off, but Harris’s lawsuit alleged RM personnel mistakenly turned it on while trespassing in the unfinished farm building on Jan. 17, 2023, causing flooding over four days, freezing and extensive damage making it unusable.

Construction began in 2018 on the building that was meant for extracting and storing honey.

In a statement of defence filed on behalf of the RM by lawyer Bernice Bowley last month, the municipality admits its staff caused flooding — and notes it offered Harris a settlement in mid-January, about a week-and-a-half before the RM was served notice of the lawsuit.

“The RM remains willing to negotiate a reasonable resolution of the plaintiff’s damages of which the plaintiff is aware,” reads the defence filings.

The RM denied negligently misrepresenting itself, calling the allegation unnecessary and superfluous.

The municipality also said its employee did not trespass, but instead went to check on the RM’s curb stop about eight feet from the Harris property on a public right of way and accidentally opened it.

The employee then checked the property to see if any water was entering, but did not cause damage by doing so, the defence filing claims.

The municipality also said it sent employees to try to mitigate the damage after it was discovered.

Further, the RM said it had no intent to interfere with the property’s economic relationships or contracts, and that no municipal officials abused their office, as alleged.

“The plea of misfeasance in public office is offensive, without reasonable justification and merits an award of solicitor and own client costs, should the plaintiff fail to establish this cause of action,” reads the court filing.

“This is particularly so because the plaintiff is aware that the RM had accepted responsibility for the loss and damages.”