Lafferty appeal over truck death conviction is dismissed

A woman convicted of dangerous driving causing death after fatally hitting a man with a truck in Yellowknife has lost her appeal.

Hannah Lafferty was found guilty of the charge following trial in April 2025 and subsequently sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment.

In convicting Lafferty, Justice Elizabeth Hughes rejected her argument that she had been driving in self-defence to avoid a fight with another woman when she accidentally hit Germaine Mantla, an innocent bystander, outside the Bison Estates apartments in April 2022. Mantla died as a result of the collision.

Appealing the conviction, Lafferty’s counsel argued Justice Hughes made legal errors in her decision, including failing to conduct a thorough, standalone analysis of Lafferty’s self-defence claim.

Lafferty argued the judge did not adequately consider her attempt to avoid a confrontation with the other woman, who had approached Lafferty’s truck, opened the driver’s-side door and then stood on the running board and held an interior door handle as Lafferty accelerated away, swerving in an attempt to shake her off.

“This took place in a matter of mere seconds,” Lafferty’s lawyer Nicola Langille told the NWT Court of Appeal in January, adding that Lafferty was in “a volatile and evolving situation.”

On Friday, in a majority decision, the three-judge appeals court ruled against Lafferty.

“The core question is whether the driving amounted to a marked departure from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe in the same circumstances,” justices Jolaine Antonio and Jane Fagnan wrote.

In the bulk of their decision, the two judges found the trial judge did not legally falter in her analysis of Lafferty’s actions.

They said Justice Hughes’ rejection of self-defence as an argument was “grounded in the evidence.”

Dissenting judge would order new trial

The third appellate judge – Justice Mark Mossey – disagreed.

Characterizing the circumstances of the incident differently, Justice Mossey said the evidence showed the other woman had reached for the keys to the ignition “to force a confrontation” with Lafferty.

Mossey said he would have allowed the appeal as, in his view, the trial judge “made palpable and overriding errors.”

Examining the legal definitions that surround arguments related to self-defence, Mossey asserted that Justice Hughes did not correctly assess the threat of force Lafferty faced.

“To find that a reasonable person, placed in the circumstances of the Appellant, would not have perceived, at a minimum, that some sort of force, physical or otherwise, was being threatened against them, is divorced from the objective reality the Appellant found herself in,” Mossey wrote.

He argued the trial judge’s approach inappropriately changed the calculus related to the argument of self-defence and was enough to “warrant appellate intervention.”

Mossey also concluded a collarbone injury sustained by Lafferty “just weeks before” the incident should have been given more consideration by Justice Hughes.

“The injury was clearly relevant to the physical capabilities of the Appellant who perceived that she was facing a threat of force,” he wrote, adding he would have sent the case back to trial.

In dismissing the appeal, Antonio and Fagnan said their colleague Mossey was wrong on those points.

They said the trial judge had properly assessed the threat perceived by Lafferty, adding that “deference is owed” to the trial judge’s evaluation of the role Lafferty’s injury played.