Court Opinion

ID: 9862737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:02:27.343045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:24.020547
License: Public Domain

Clifford, J.
(dissenting). Today’s decision is in ho way supported by any “established principles of law long recognized in this State” relied on by the majority, ante at 4. (slip opinion at 4). Inasmuch as I am unpersuaded that we should depart from the present state of the law as implicated by the fact situation before us, I dissent.
The sweeping holding of the case, going quite beyond the necessities of the “snow and ice” situation presented, is this: “[A]n abutting landowner or occupier owes a duty of reasonable care to pedestrians lawfully traversing the public way to avoid the creation of, or to eliminate, ameliorate or *10correct, a dangerous or hazardous condition due to use of the public sidewalk for a special purpose related to his business activity on the property.” Ante at 9.
The Hew Jersey authorities adverted to by the majority all involve either the abutting owner’s or occupier’s invasion of the public way for his own purposes, specifically by way of creation or maintenance of an instrumentality of sorts on, over, or beneath the sidewalk so as to create a hazard, as with a hole, Durant v. Palmer, 29 N. J. L. 544 (E. & A. 1862); a drain pipe, Rupp v. Burgess, 70 N. J. L. 7 (Sup. Ct. 1903); a cellar door, Krug v. Wanner, 28 N. J. 174 (1958); or a leader, Saco v. Hall, 1 N. J. 377 (1949); or improper use (the driving of heavy trucks over the sidewalk, causing it to deteriorate and break) for the benefit of the abutting owner or occupier, Prange v. McLaughlin, 115 N. J. L. 116 (E. & A. 1935) (“[T]he defendant permitted and apparently prompted the use of the sidewalk in a manner not contemplated when it was constructed * * *” [115 U. J. L. at 119]), and Wirth v. Peters, 36 N. J. Super. 172 (App. Div. 1955). These cases are readily distinguishable, both in fact and in principle. Defendant here created or maintained absolutely nothing on the sidewalk. He was guiltless of any affirmative act which, while benefitting the property, thereby resulted in an obstruction in the public right of way. Likewise, the use of the service station entrance over the public sidewalk by motor vehicles is not (nor could it be) claimed to be in anywise improper or unanticipated. And in any event the issue before us has nothing to do with deterioration of the walk itself.
As far .as our own case law is concerned, respectable authority of forty years standing is dispositive of the matter. In Den Braven v. Public Service Elec. & Gas Co., 115 N. J. L. 543 (E. & A. 1935), the plaintiff fell on that part of the public sidewalk used by defendant as a driveway for its buses, which use had caused snow to become icy and slippery. The Court of Errors and Appeals affirmed the judgment for de*11fendant entered on the complaint being stricken as not stating a cause of action. The court there said:
We concur with the learned trial judge in the view that no legal cause of action is set forth in the complaint. It is not alleged that the use of the sidewalk was an improper one in that the vehicles were not proper to be so used or that the crossing itself was not a lawful one and suitable for the purpose. The use, therefore, by the company was that use which every occupant of premises with a driveway therefrom crossing the sidewalk into the public highway exercises ; each differing in degree, perhaps. It was the same lawful use, though different in kind, that the pedestrian exercises when he travels the sidewalk longitudinally or in crossing. This being true the case falls within the well defined class of cases which absolves the user from liability for conditions imposed by nature where no other and further interference with the course of nature than that exercised by the defendant exists.
It is well known that travel upon streets and sidewalks after falls of snow disturbs the integrity of the original snowfall, and that such disturbance tends to cause alternate thawing and freezing which might not -otherwise exist. This is precisely what is alleged to have occurred in the present case. The snow had accumulated through natural forces. The passing back and forth of the vehicles disturbed its original condition. This, as day and night succeeded each other, tended to cause the icy condition complained of. The result was that to be expected, whether, as in this instance, by using vehicles crossing it, or, as in other cases, by pedestrians using it as a foot walk. In the absence of an attack on the construction of the sidewalk itself or in the lawfulness of its use, the defendant was not responsible for consequences in the exercise of that lawful right. * * * If the law were as contended for by the appellant it would follow that an owner of property could not so construct or use the sidewalk, usually the only means of access, without incurring an obligation to correct the slippery condition to which his vehicles had contributed, and incurring liability to anyone who happened to slip thereon. As well might the pedestrian be called upon to correct the like condition resulting from the prints of his shoes. No one of the cases in this state cited by the appellant goes so far as to impose such obligation, and cases cited from other jurisdictions are not authority here. [115 N. J. L. at 5AA-45; citation omitted.]
As for the “fairness and equity” of the situation my notion of it does not lead me to discover a hitherto unrecognized obligation to remove whatever snow and ice impediment may be said to have existed in the public way. Apparently the critical factor in the majority’s consideration is the com*12mercial nature of defendant’s activities. And so if plaintiff had fallen where passing pedestrians had packed down the snow, there would be no duty to correct the condition. With respect to, say, a retail store, I suppose under the majority’s theory a fall at a spot in the public sidewalk where customers walking toward the store had created a slippery condition in the public way could give rise to liability; whereas if the mishap occurred at a snowy place trampled down and made hazardous by disinterested pedestrians, there would be no obligation to correct the condition. Such examples, limited only by one’s imagination, emphasize that the principle announced by the majority is neither equitable nor susceptible of judicial administration.
In any event I fail to perceive why the fact that the abutting owner conducts a business enterprise should be the critical factor in determining the existence- of a duty. By implication, at least, that duty is, according to the majority, a restricted one and does not extend to residential properties. But why should a business operator have imposed on him a legal duty which an abutting residential owner or operator escapes under circumstances precisely the same from the point of view of the injured pedestrian, a stranger to both of them ? No- guiding principle is set forth for this selective and discriminatory overruling of the established law of this State, unless it is impliedly the “pass through of costs” theory, frequently used as a rationale in products liability cases. E.g., Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc., 32 N. J. 358, 379 (1960). That notion seems singularly inappropriate as to this defendant and similarly situated small retailers (as distinguished from large manufacturers) whose product base and hence ability to absorb increased costs is limited and whose exposure may, as here, be measured not by the number of consumers but rather by the number of strangers passing by the premises.
As for any suggestion that we should abandon all restraint and indeed extend the duty announced today to abutting owners or occupiers of residential property, I am content to *13rest, until we have that case before us, on the reasoning of Ben Braven, supra.
I would affirm.
Judge Coneobd joins in this opinion.
For reversal and remandment■—-Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Mountain, Sullivan, P ashman and Schkeiber— 5.
For affirmance—Justice Clieeobd and Judge Coneobd—3.