Court Opinion

ID: 9747311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:10:04.208568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:31.806235
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
With today’s decision the Court skates on thin ice. That a public entity enjoys immunity for garden-variety snow-removal activities, such as plaintiff alleges in this case, has been frozen in our jurisprudence for a quarter of a century. See Miehl v. Darpino, 53 N.J. 49, 247 A.2d 878 (1968). Indeed, in Rochinsky v. State, Department of Transportation, 110 N.J. 399, 541 A.2d 1029 (1988), we characterized the nature of that immunity as “absolute,” id. at 402, 541 A.2d 1029, and held that it had survived the passage of the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 14-4. Ibid. The majority opinion today simply plows over our declaration in Rochinsky that the common-law immunity for snow-removal activities is “among the most significant immunities recognized by judicial decision prior to the adoption of the [Tort Claims] Act.” Id. at 414, 541 A.2d 1029.
The Court offers two reasons for its refusal to afford snow-removal immunity to defendant Jersey City Housing Authority: (1) “[t]he historical basis for the policy to immunize public entities from liability for negligent snow removal of streets and highways does not apply to public housing authorities and the cleanup of internal driveways,” ante at 134, 619 A.2d at 580; and (2) “under the common law, public housing authorities were deemed to owe the same standard of care to their tenants as did other commercial landlords,” ante at 134, 619 A.2d at 580. The reasoning leaves me cold.
*139Although it readily acknowledges that a public housing authority is a public entity, ante at 131, 619 A.2d at 578, the majority seeks to differentiate this Authority from any other public entity on the basis that whereas a state, county, municipality, or turnpike authority would face “limitless liability” flowing from its “responsibility to clean up numerous streets and roads,” ante at 131, 619 A.2d at 578, this defendant has only “a finite area from which to remove the snow.” Ante at 131, 619 A.2d at 579. Putting aside the fact that all other public entities that are accorded immunity likewise must deal with a finite area (probably larger) with a limited work force (also larger), the argument does not stick because it overlooks the common denominator of the policy underlying the immunity: snow happens, snow can be guarded against to only a limited extent, snow invariably causes accidents in which people suffer injuries, and the taxpaying public — which ultimately pays any judgments against public entities — cannot withstand the avalanche of costs entailed in fighting a losing battle against nature or in handling the blizzard of lawsuits that will inevitably be filed by the unfortunate victims of snow and ice if the immunity heretofore afforded begins to melt away.
The second reason for withholding immunity — public housing authorities have been held, in other contexts, to the same common-law duties as commercial landlords, see ante at 134-137, 619 A.2d at 580-581 — deserves but frosty comment: the cold, hard truth is that snow is different, for all the reasons set forth above. That realization is at the root of the entire body of law that sets snow-and-ice removal apart from other areas of tort law.
One can make a respectable argument for the sleighride that the Court takes us on today. Although I would not at all agree with that argument, I presume to suggest that the integrity of the common law would be better served by an outright acknowledgement that the Court is shovelling a new path. Short of that, the majority opinion strikes me as a snow job.