From the Canadian Press team
Posted on January 16, 2023, 4:00 pm
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Two Vancouver tenants have been ordered to pay more than $500,000 after a November 2017 apartment fire that a judge ruled was “foreseeable.”
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Matthew Kirchner ruled that Angela Chow created a risk of injury and fire by keeping her apartment “in a state of near hoarding” with densely packed items covering most of the floor space.
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Chow and her former partner Danny Chen, who did not live there but was still listed as a tenant, were ordered to pay the Langara Gardens apartment building more than $512,000 for damages caused by the fire.
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The fire spread to other apartments and the court ordered that Chow also pay $56,000 to Langara Gardens for lost rent while 10 apartments were repaired.
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A fire investigator testified that the fire started when household items in the unit, possibly a box or pillow case, came into contact with a halogen bulb when Chow was momentarily out of the room.
Kirchner’s decision, posted online Friday, said Chow created an “unreasonable risk of injury” and specifically a risk of fire because of the accumulated combustible material stored in her apartment.
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