In Hanna v. Woodland Community Association, the New Jersey Appellate Division was asked to determine whether the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to a landscaper, a community association, and a property management company based on the “on-going storm rule” adopted by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Pareja v. Princeton Int’l Props. in 2021. Under this rule, commercial landowners do not have a duty to remove the accumulation of snow and ice until the conclusion of a winter storm. The Court agreed with the trial court that under the rule, the landscaper, community association and management company had no duty to clear snow that had fallen in the parking lot an hour after the storm ended. However, the Court noted that the law recognizes an exception to the rule for pre-existing snow and ice conditions, and identified facts in the record that could support a finding of the presence of a pre-existing risk with respect to the community association and management company. Accordingly, the court affirmed the granting of summary judgment to the landscaper and remanded the rest of the case for trial against the community association and management company.
The facts of the case are relatively straightforward. Plaintiff was injured when he fell in the parking lot of a condominium complex about an hour after a snowstorm had ended. This storm was the second one in two days and left an accumulation of about seven inches of snow. The previous day, a short morning storm left about an inch of snow. After the first storm, neither the community association nor the management company requested the landscaper to remove the snow from the common areas of the property. Under the contract between the landscaper and the community association, the landscaper was only obligated to perform snow removal services if the accumulation of snow exceeded two inches, unless specifically requested to do so by the community association.
On appeal, plaintiff alleged that the on-going storm rule did not relieve defendants of their duty to maintain the common elements pursuant to the Condominium Act and regulations regarding the maintenance of multiple dwellings. He further argued that defendants were liable despite the rule because 1) the rule applies exclusively to the common law duty of commercial landowners to clear public sidewalks abutting their property, not condominium associations; 2) the rule is inapplicable because the snow had stopped falling when plaintiff fell; and 3) the rule does not alleviate the landscaper’s duty to perform its work in a reasonably safe manner, regardless of ongoing snowfall. The Court disagreed and held that all plaintiff’s arguments failed due to the rule. Alternatively, plaintiff also argued, with expert support, that the first storm created ice under the snow of the second storm, which caused plaintiff to slip and fall.
The Court addressed each of plaintiff’s arguments in turn. With respect to plaintiff’s argument that the Condominium Act and other regulations conferred additional duties on defendants beyond the common law on-going storm rule, the Court quickly dismissed plaintiff’s position. The Court noted that New Jersey caselaw has consistently held condominium associations to the same premises liability standards as commercial landowners and that the Pareja case , among others, rejected the plaintiff’s distinction.
Regarding plaintiff’s argument that the rule was inapplicable because the snow had stopped falling, the Court recognized that the rule suspends a landowner’s duty within a reasonable time after the storm. Based on the size of the complex, the amount of time the landscaper spent plowing, and the fact that the accident occurred only one hour after the end of the storm, the Court held that it was not reasonable for the removal work to be completed within one hour after the
storm. Addressing plaintiff’s argument that the rule was inapplicable because the landscaper violated its contractual obligation to clear the snow in a reasonably safe manner, the Court stated that such an argument “defies logic.” The Court noted that limiting the on-going storm rule to commercial landowners, but not their contracted snow removal service providers, would nullify the import of the Pareja ruling.
Finally, the Court addressed plaintiff’s alternative argument; namely, that if the on-going storm rule applies to the facts of this case, then plaintiff fell on ice that formed and went un-treated from a pre-existing storm, which is an exception to the on-going storm rule. The Court first noted that the landscaper, who was not asked to provide snow removal services for the first storm, did not have any duty to remove any ice or snow from the prior storm. The Court held that there were no issues of material fact as to the landscaper’s duty for any pre-existing conditions and affirmed the grant of summary judgment.
As for the application of the pre-existing condition exclusion to the community association and management company, the Court determined that material issues of fact existed as to whether the prior day’s storm created a pre-existing risk. While the trial court sua sponte found that one of plaintiff’s two expert meteorological reports constituted a net opinion, the Court disagreed. Finding that the trial court impermissibly weighed the credibility of the report and found it lacking, the Court held that there was no true analysis of the admissibility of the report. The trial court deemed that a personal observation of pre-existing ice was necessary to establish the opinion, but the Court found that ruling to be an abuse of discretion. The Court then held that the report was not a net opinion and that ice could have formed before the second storm, which would impose a duty on the community association and management company to mitigate the ice accumulation. The judge reversed the trial court’s decision as to the landscaper and the community association and remanded the case for trial.
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