Court Opinion

ID: 9693627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:53:36.965299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:49.120646
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
concurring in judgment.
Four score and six years ago our judicial forefathers brought forth upon the jurisprudence of this state a principle of law, conceived in good sense and dedicated to the proposition that all nuisance-maintainers are created equal. Relying on that principle, culled from Meyer v. Harris, 61 N.J.L. 83, 100-01 (Sup.Ct. 1897), this Court declared, in a nuisance-in-the-public-way case:
Where * * * an owner demises land with a nuisance on it created by him or his predecessor in title, he remains liable. It is no defense to such claim that by demising the land he has lost the power to abate the nuisance; he should have so *419abated it before parting with control. [Pirozzi v. Acme Holding Co., 5 N.J. 178, 188 (1950).]
Now we are engaged in a great judicial debate, testing whether that proposition or any other proposition of sidewalk law can long endure. We are met on the battlefield of last resort in that debate, following closely on the heels of the skirmish in Stewart v. 104 Wallace St., Inc., 87 N.J. 146 (1981). In Stewart the Court came to dedicate its opinion as a final resting-place for those decisions, including the late, lamented Yanhko v. Fane, 70 N.J. 528 (1976), that held the abutting owner not liable for the condition of a public sidewalk caused by the action of the elements or by wear and tear incident to the public use, but only for the negligent construction or repair of the sidewalk by himself or by a specified predecessor in title. Mirza v. Filmore Corp., 92 N.J. 390 (1983), decided this day, applies Stewart retroactively. That requires an affirmance of the Appellate Division’s remand for trial as to defendants Ecco and Capita, the abutting owner at the time plaintiff tripped and fell on the public sidewalk.
But what of defendant Oster, the predecessor in title? The Court, after rummaging about in other fields of tort law, including real property vendor liability, ante at 411-412, and contractor liability, ante at 413, finally settles on the proposition that “[a] pedestrian who establishes that any prior owner of the property negligently maintained the sidewalk and that that negligence was a proximate cause of the accident and the ensuing injuries will be entitled to recover from that wrongdoer.” Ante at 414-415. I take it from footnote 6, ante at 415 n. 6, that there remains open the question of whether the rules governing the duration of a predecessor’s liability are to be transplanted from other areas of tort law into our “new” sidewalk law. I suspect I would find such a mixture not to my taste and the concoction difficult to swallow, but that remains to be seen. As the matter stands, I concur in the judgment affirming the Appellate Division’s remand.
*420The world may little note nor long remember what we say here, but it is adjured to forget what our predecessors did in formulating our sidewalk law. It is for us to be dedicated to the task remaining before us — applying the new rules of law.
CLIFFORD, J., concurring in the result.
For Affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, HANDLER, POLLOCK and O’HERN — 6.
For reversal —None.