A woman has been found guilty of dangerous driving causing death three years after fatally hitting a man with a truck outside a Yellowknife apartment building.
In NWT Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Elizabeth Hughes found Hannah Lafferty guilty of the charge in the death of Germaine Mantla.
The judge rejected Lafferty’s argument that she had been driving in self-defence to avoid a fight with another woman when she accidentally hit Mantla, who was an innocent bystander.
Hughes concluded Lafferty’s driving was “a marked departure from the standard of care expected of a reasonable person” in the circumstances.
According to Hughes’ decision, on the evening of April 21, 2022, Lafferty had driven her partner to the Bison Estates apartments – where his former partner and their children lived – to pick up his dog.
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Lafferty said she was parked outside and looking at her phone when she saw her partner gesturing for her to leave. At the same time, a woman walked in front of her truck whom Lafferty recognized as his former partner.
The woman told the court she had wanted to ask why Lafferty brought the man to the woman’s apartment and how long they had been dating. Lafferty said she believed the woman wanted to hurt her.
As the woman opened the driver’s-side door of the truck, Lafferty put the vehicle into drive. The woman, who said she “had no time to think and acted in a panic to survive,” got onto the running board of the truck and held onto the interior handle of the door as Lafferty accelerated and began fishtailing in an effort to shake the woman off the truck.
Lafferty said she was looking at the woman rather than looking ahead while she was driving. She said she only saw Mantla standing off the travelled portion of the road “mere moments” before braking and hitting him with the open door of the truck.
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Mantla was struck with enough force that he was thrown out of his shoes. He died as a result of the collision.
After Lafferty stopped the vehicle, she said the woman punched her in the face, knocking off her glasses. The judge said she could not determine whether bruising to Lafferty’s face was a result of the punch or from the force of the accident.
‘Immediate and foreseeable risk’
Hughes concluded that driving while rapidly accelerating with the door open, on the wrong side of the road, not looking ahead and deliberately swerving back and forth – with a person standing on the running board of a vehicle – in a residential area “created an immediate and foreseeable risk of serious consequences.”
She said Lafferty was “overly fearful” in the circumstances and she “overreacted.”
The judge said there is no evidence that the woman was a violent person. She did not have a weapon or make any threatening comments or gestures, and she did not say anything to Lafferty until after Lafferty began driving and she told her to stop.
She said while the woman punched Lafferty, that was after Lafferty stopped the truck in response to her driving and it caused minimal injuries.
Hughes added that Lafferty had other options, such as exiting the truck from the passenger’s side, asking her partner for help, or calling 9-1-1.
“Ms Lafferty’s manner of driving, in essence using the truck as a weapon, was not proportionate to any perceived threat of force,” Hughes said.
The judge and lawyers in the case are expected to schedule a date for sentencing at a future time.
