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The B.C. Supreme Court has found the Nanaimo parents of a 14-year-old boy liable for more than $48,000 in damages caused by a school prank.

In a decision released Thursday, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick said during lunch break on Jan. 17, 2012 in response to a dare, Carson Dean put a padlock on a sprinkler head in Wellington secondary school.

That set off the firefighting system and the alarm causing extensive water damage.

Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District No. 68 sued parents, Cheryl and Kevin Dean, and won $48,630.47 plus interest and legal costs yet to be assessed for the two-day November trial on Vancouver Island.

I am sure that this is a very unfortunate result for the Dean family and perhaps it will be for other families in the future, Justice Fitzpatrick said.

This was clearly the result of a young boy (now 17) misbehaving and thinking that the only grief to come of it would be to (his friend and the locks owner) Ben and perhaps the janitor in removing the padlock. Obviously, more dire consequences followed.

The central issue concerned interpretation of section 10 of the School Act, which says: If property of a board is destroyed, damaged, lost or converted by the intentional or negligent act of a student that student and that students parents are jointly and severally liable to the board in respect of the act of that student.

The section has received scant attention from the courts over the years despite being enacted more than half a century ago.

The Deans argued their son was not negligent and that the act imposed liability only if the student intentionally caused the damage in, say, an act of vandalism.

No court has yet wrestled with the interpretation issue that arises in this case, Justice Fitzpatrick noted.

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Ian Mulgrew: Parents pay the price for sons school prank

MAGOFFIN COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) - The Magoffin County Justice Center had to be closed Thursday morning because of flooding.

"The sprinkler system on the circuit side of the building burst, it flooded the circuit court room with this, it's a black water that comes from the sprinkler system and the water just kept coming and coming and coming" says Magoffin County Circuit Clerk, Tonya Arnett-Ward.

Court was in session Thursday morning when a sprinkler in the Justice Building started spraying water, leading officials to evacuate the building.

As time went on pipes began to burst causing the water damage to worsen.

"Its just devastating that we've lost so much equipment, the district court room is flooded, the circuit court room, the carpets, all that's destroyed" says Arnett-Ward.

Once officials were able to stop water from coming in they began repairing the building.

"Repair the water leak, cap it off so we can get water back in the building turn the heat on and get the electric back on" says Magoffin County Emergency Management Director, Mike Wilson.

Workers in the building say this isn't the first time the Justice Center has had water issues.

"Last year the sprinkler system on this side of building on the family court side of the building burst and we had a leak but nothing compared to this one" says Arnett-Ward

Emergency Management Director, Mike Wilson says he believes repairs will be made quickly.

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Magoffin County Justice Center closed due to flooding

A nursing home in Clarence, Mo. was evacuated Thursday afternoon after a frozen sprinkler system led to what staff thought was a fire.

According to an employee, 29 residents were evacuated safely from the Clarence Care Center around 3 p.m.

A sprinkler system froze and broke, causing water to flood the buildings community room, shorting out several lights.

The short created smoke which set off the buildings fire alarm.

There were no injuries or complications from smoke for any resident.

The 29 residents were taken to the nearby Clarence Medical Clinic.

Seven later went home with family, while 22 residents were taken to the Salt River Nursing Home in Shelbina, Mo. where Clarence Care Center staff members will be on hand to assist them.

An employee told KHQA the residents taken to Shelbina were in good health after the move.

Workers were fixing the buildings sprinkler system as of 7:20 p.m. Thursday, as staff told KHQA they expect to have all residents moved back into the building by Friday night.

The Clarence Care Center suffered water damage as a result of the incident.

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Nursing home evacuated after sprinklers break

U.S. stocks dropped sharply on Friday, pulling benchmarks back into the red for the year, as the December jobs report topped expectations but hourly earnings declined and investors tracked events in France after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

"It was a really positive jobs report. I know the market sold off here in an aftermath reaction, but we just had an incredible rally, it's a Friday, we have the situation in Paris, we're setting up for the upcoming weekend and we have earnings starting next week," JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, said of investor unease.

"And then there's the crude-oil situation, until you see three weeks of stability in crude, it's going to spell volatility in the market," Kinahan added.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of investor uncertainty, rose 7.4 percent to 18.27.

"It's been such a volatile week, people shouldn't read too much into one-day moves," David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds, said, referring to a week that has so far had the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing each day a triple-digit move in either direction.

The figures from the Labor Department had the U.S. economy adding 252,000 to payrolls last month, and the November already robust gain revised higher, to 353,000, prompting stock-index futures to reverse higher ahead of the open.

But the enthusiasm proved short lived.

"We had better-than-expected payrolls gains, a drop in unemployment, but we didn't see any wage growth," Kelly said.

Another economic report had wholesale inventories climbing 0.8 percent in November, above estimates

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Dow sheds 1 percent on wage drop, global uncertainty

By Dow Jones Business News, January 08, 2015, 10:55:00 PM EDT

WASHINGTON--The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's failure to examine J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s investment unit ahead of the bank's 2012 "London whale" trading debacle stemmed from turf battles with other regulators, overreliance on J.P. Morgan's solid reputation and financial-crisis-related distractions, according to the Fed's watchdog.

A full version of the Fed's Office of Inspector General's report on its investigation into the incident sheds additional light on how the New York Fed stumbled in its oversight of the bank's chief investment office, where the traders engaging in the problematic derivatives transactions were based.

The inspector general previously had released only a four-page summary of its report, which said the New York Fed failed to examine the investment office ahead of the trading debacle although a team of Fed experts had recommended a " full-scope examination" in August 2009.

The New York Fed team never carried that examination out. The Wall Street Journal obtained the full report through an open-records request, though passages were redacted.

The 77-page report sheds new light on tensions between the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversaw J.P. Morgan, as well as between Fed staff in Washington and New York.

In its response to the report, top Fed officials expressed some resistance to the inspector general's conclusions.

Michael Gibson, the Fed's director of banking supervision and regulation, pinned the "whale" failures on a lack of resources.

"The resource challenges faced by the Federal Reserve System and the FRBNY during this period cannot be underestimated," he said.

In light of that, the Fed believes it was "wholly appropriate...to rely on the assessments of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and JPM's internal audit department in lieu of conducting its own examination," he said.

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Fed IG Report Sheds Light on 'London Whale'

MITSU YASUKAWA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Hackensack Councilwoman Rose Greenman and Zoning Officer Al Borrelli at a hearing in Hackensack on Thursday.

HACKENSACK City Councilwoman Rose Greenman claimed on Thursday that a zoning complaint against her that was dismissed in Municipal Court was an act of "retaliation" against her by the mayor and deputy mayor for her opposition to their agenda.

Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino, when reached by phone separately on Thursday, fiercely rejected the accusation as "absolutely" false. They each said they had nothing to do with an attempt by zoning officials to inspect Greenman's residence.

Greenman's claim appears to point to continuing division on the council, which came into office in 2013 promising reform after decades of control by the Zisa political family.

On Thursday morning, Judge Roy F. McGeady, the presiding judge for the Bergen County municipal courts, dismissed a city citation that alleged Greenman denied a city inspector access to her apartment in a Prospect Avenue high-rise building where she lives. Inspectors reportedly were checking on a complaint that Greenman was operating her law office from her residence, an alleged violation of residential zoning.

Greenman said city Zoning Officer Al Borrelli had told her that Labrosse and Canestrino were pressuring him through Art Koster, who then was the interim city manager, to do the inspection.

Reached by phone on Thursday afternoon, Borrelli denied Greenman's account.

Borrelli said that after he received a request from Koster to inspect the residence, he mailed two notices, the first on Aug. 7 and the second on Aug. 15, but got no response. He issued the citation on Aug. 26.

Borrelli said after the hearing that Greenman faced a fine of as much as $1,250 for denying access and a fine of up to $2,000 had a zoning violation been found.

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Zoning complaint sheds light on council rift in Hackensack

The Toronto stock market fell into negative territory Friday amid a big miss in Canadian job creation numbers while American employment data reassured investors that the U.S. is still the main pillar of support for the global economy.

The S&P/TSX composite index slid 70.38 points to 14,387.34 as Statistics Canada says the country lost 4,300 jobs in December but the national unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.6 per cent. Economists had forecast that the economy cranked out 15,000 jobs last month, after a decline of about 10,700 in November.

BNN Video Jan. 08 2015, 6:20 AM EST

The Canadian dollar was down 0.2 of a cent to 84.29 cents (U.S.).

New York indexes were also in the red after two days of major advances amid far more encouraging employment news as the U.S. economy created 252,000 jobs last month, comfortably above the consensus of 230,000. Also, the jobless rate fell to 5.6 per cent from 5.8 per cent.

The Dow Jones industrials fell 171 points to 17,736.89, the Nasdaq slide 35.13 points to 4,701.05 and the S&P 500 index slipped 17.82 points to 2,044.32.

The TSX energy sector rose 0.25 per cent while oil prices were lower following two days of gains, with the February contract in New York down 34 cents to $48.44 (U.S.) a barrel.

The base metals group drifted 0.1 per cent higher as March copper was down a penny to $2.76 a pound.

The gold sector ran ahead almost three per cent while February bullion was ahead $5.90 to $1,214.40 an ounce.

The financials group led decliners, down 0.35 per cent.

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Markets negative amid conflicting Canadian, U.S. jobs numbers

For what could be a first in the citys history, the decision to appoint a mayor for Beaumont was postponed at the first meeting of the year Tuesday until Jan. 20.

Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Fox motioned to delay the appointment without an explanation during the city council meeting. The council unanimously voted to appoint the mayor at the next meeting.

During a short break, Fox explained why he made the decision, saying the atmosphere wasnt right and there was no rush to appoint a mayor.

Fox was referring to tense interactions between audience members, the council and Mayor Brenda Knight during an action item on a Clean Water State Revolving Fund reimbursement. The item was regarding low-income areas that would be changed from septic to sewer systems. Discussions became heated when Councilman Lloyd White questioned Knight about why she received a letter in December from an organization, called California River Watch, and the council only learned of the letter just before Tuesday nights meeting.

City Attorney David Wysocki said that nothing was being withheld from the council members. He said he was investigating allegations contained in the letter and that the issue would be brought to the council in closed session on Jan. 20.

White asked Knight if she had received the letter and she said yes. White asked to go into closed session to discuss the issue but Wysocki said that would not be necessary because the letter was not an agenda item.

Knight said she was more comfortable following the advice of the city attorney.

Management analyst Kelsey Gormley gave a staff report on the fund that would allow the city to change an area of Sixth Street, between Xenia and Palm Avenues, from septic to sewer system.

Families living in three trailer parks and in 11 single-family residences considered low-income housing on Maple Avenue are affected, said Gormley.

Councilmember Mark Orozco said he had done his research on this subject and had been following it for several years. He asked when the application for the grant had been submitted.

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Mayoral appointment delayed, tensions rise at Beaumont council meeting

Lou Pektor, the developer behind historic renovations including the Main Street Commons building and Union Station, got a stamp of approval by planners Thursday to bring a Mexican brewpub and restaurant to an empty parking lot in south Bethlehem.

The Planning Commission voted 4-0 to approve the land development plans for a 2 1/2-story building at the southeast corner of East Third and Polk streets, with the intent to house Cerveza, the brewpub, and Agave, a fine-dining restaurant.

The restaurant and brewpub will have 380 seats inside and on the rooftop. There also will be outside seating, a feature added over the last two months when the developer decided to move the building back 10 feet.

Pektor has said he hopes to open both restaurants by the end of this year. That hinges on whether the $6.7 million project at 404 E. Third St., can tap into the tax incentives offered in the City Revitalization and Improvement Zone.

The lot is outside of the zone's border, though the city authority overseeing the CRIZ in October approved the project as "qualified" to take advantage of zone tax benefits.

A formal application to change the boundary is needed, but city officials have said they are awaiting direction from the state on how to go about submitting the boundary changes for state approval.

The CRIZ covers 130 acres in Bethlehem, including large portions of former Bethlehem Steel land, and allows developers to use certain state and local taxes to offset construction costs.

Pektor said the tax incentive is crucial to financing the project.

"We can't make it work without it," he said.

He said the delay is not going to affect the interest of the restaurateurs, who have a similar operation in Seattle. It would be their first East Coast location, he said.

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Bethlehem planners approve Mexican restaurant, brewpub

The worst film director on the planet has high hopes of opening the best restaurant in Vancouver, something he swears is not a publicity stunt.

Bauhaus, a modern German restaurant set to launch in Gastown this spring, is the brainchild of Uwe Boll, who once challenged and knocked out five of his most outspoken critics in a highly publicized boxing match.

With characteristic chutzpah, the one-man Blitzkrieg of Bad, whose blood-soaked, B-grade video-game adaptations garnered him a rare Worst Career Achievement award from the Razzies (a qualitative counterpart to the Oscars), has recruited A-list lieutenants for his fine-dining project.

Stefan Hartmann, former owner of the one-Michelin-starred Hartmanns Restaurant in Berlin, is executive chef. General manager Tim Adams comes with sterling pedigree from Londons CH & Co., a contract catering group that serves the British Royal Households.

Vancouver is, uh, different from what Ive done in the past, Mr. Adams says diplomatically. In his most recent position as general manager of Kensington Palace, he once kept an office in the apartments now occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Touring the site at 1 West Cordova St. (previously home to the original Boneta), the trio was decidedly upbeat, almost giddy.

It wont be fancy-pantsy, said Mr. Boll, climbing over a stack of wood flats as a construction worker behind him put his boots to bending a long steel rod. Like the food, it will be clean and classic with a lot of straight lines. Vancouver designer Andrea Greenway is giving the heritage building a Mid-Century modern makeover in wood, marble and brick.

Bauhaus, however, will be very expensive: A three-course la carte dinner will be about $80 to $100 a person, the seven-course chefs menu even pricier. Prestigious wines on the Enomatic preservation dispenser could run up to $50 a glass.

As Mr. Hartmann correctly points out, the proposed prices are still great value when compared to Europe. But the question remains: Is Vancouver ready to pay top dollar for eisbein (pickled ham hock)?

There are a lot of Ferraris and Lamborghinis in Vancouver, Mr. Boll said, shrugging. People have money here. When I talk to business people, they all go to the same few places. We want to be part of that mix. Were not competing with anyone. Were offering something different.

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Low-budget gore film director set to launch high-end Vancouver restaurant