Court Opinion

ID: 9577468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:35:17.337131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:39.085596
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, C.J.,
dissenting.
I recognize that the courts with few exceptions hold that an abutting owner is not liable to a person who is injured as a result of the owner’s failure to remove ice and snow from the sidewalk in front of his premises. We have adopted this rule in our previous cases.(1)
I think that we should now hold that there is a *285duty on the part of a possessor of land used for business purposes to remove from abutting sidewalks ice and snow which constitutes an unreasonably dangerous condition. In the present case it is only necessary to hold the duty runs to those who use the sidewalks as' business invitees of the possessor.
We have already held that an occupier of property used for business purposes can be held liable to its customers for negligently failing to eliminate an unreasonably dangerous condition resulting from the accumulation of ice and snow in its parking lot.(2) And we have held that the store owner may be liable to customers who slip on melted snow inside the store. The same duty should extend to customers who slip and fall on snow and ice which has accumulated on the approaches not in possession of the owner but which are used by the customers as a means of ingress and egress to and from the occupier’s property.(3)
If this court is hesitant to create on its own a duty in these circumstances, then I would suggest that the duty can be found in the ordinance of the city of Astoria, which imposes upon abutting owners the duty to remove snow and ice from abutting property.(4) The *286majority opinion dismisses the ordinance on the ground that it has been interpreted as running exclusively in favor of the municipality. By its express terms the ordinance reveals that it was designed to “assure safe travel.” This means safe travel for the public using the sidewalks. If the violation of a jaywalking ordinance is negligence per se, then it would seem that the violation of the ordinance in question is negligence per se.
The majority opinion does not explain why a snow removal ordinance, although intended to assure safe travel to those using the sidewalks runs exclusively to the municipality, whereas other ordinances also designed for the protection of members of the community runs to them. In my opinion, the present interpretation of the snow removal ordinances can only be explained as an anachronism.(5) I would not perpetuate it.

 Marsh v. McLaughlin et ux, 210 Or 84, 309 P2d 188 (1957); Rees v. Cobbs & Mitchell Co., 131 Or 665, 283 P 1115 (1930).

 Dawson v. Payless for Drugs, 248 Or 334, 433 P2d 1019 (1967).

 This point of view was expressed in Merkel v. Safeway Stores, 77 NJ Super 535, 187 A2d 52, 55 (1962): “The defendant’s invitees could not use the premises in the manner in which they were invited to use them except by passing over the public sidewalk. Under these circumstances there can be little question but that the public sidewalk was the means of ingress and egress provided by defendant for its customers, and the duty of using reasonable care to maintain it in a safe condition should apply. In fact defendant recognized its obligation and attempted to clear the sidewalk.”

 I have expressed a dissenting view in several cases to the effect that we should not regard statutes or ordinances setting *286penalties for certain conduct as establishing the standard for the adjudication of personal injury cases. Ray v. Anderson, 240 Or 619, 403 P2d 372 (1965); Dimick v. Linnell, 240 Or 509, 402 P2d 734 (1965); McConnell v. Herron, 240 Or 486, 402 P2d 726 (1965); Henthorne v. Hopwood et al, 218 Or 336, 338 P2d 373, 345 P2d 249 (1959). But a majority of the court has taken a contrary view and I am simply urging that the same view can be taken in the present case.

 Cf., DeGraff, Snow and Ice, 21 Cornell L Q 436 (1936).