The owner of Burnaby’s Metropolis at Metrotown mall and Paladin Security have been ordered to pay $1.8 million in damages to a B.C. teen who was assaulted and falsely arrested in November 2019.
The court ruling found Ivanhoe Cambridge and the security contractor to be liable for the plaintiff’s injuries, who testified that they “believed they had done nothing wrong.”
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Leaving Metrotown
On November 23, 2019, the plaintiff was with a group of friends at Metropolis at Metrotown when security guards asked them to leave. According to the judgement, the group complied, but stopped at a Champs Sports store to pick up a house key, rather than heading directly to the exit.
The security guards then followed the group. After leaving the store, the two guards “abruptly took hold” of the plaintiff. The security guards put them in an arm lock. The judgement noted “the security camera evidence confirms that the plaintiff was not pushing, kicking or ‘throwing’ themselves onto the ground at this point.”
The plaintiff was then marched through the mall, wherein a takedown was then performed on the plaintiff after reaching outside the mall. Reportedly, the security guards hit their face and pushed them down a set of stairs onto a sidewalk. They were then kicked in the ribs by one of the guards, and was placed in handcuffs.
Afterwards, the plaintiff was placed in a small cell for 45 minutes. Their phone was seized, and their mother was not permitted to see them when she arrived. They were eventually released into RCMP custody, and no criminal charges proceeded.
The court found that the plaintiff experienced severe headaches and sleep disturbances in the years following the incident due to a concussion they sustained during the detainment.
“The stated justification for the plaintiff’s eviction and the use of force by the Paladin guards was, from the outset, mistaken and unfounded,” Justice Francesca Marzari said in her judgment.
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