Court Opinion

ID: 9754304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:54:50.896514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:51.887192
License: Public Domain

Justice VERNIERO,
concurring.
I join the Court’s disposition in respect of both the municipality and commercial landowner. I write briefly only to emphasize that I agree with the Court’s legal conclusion concerning the landowner in view of the fact that the dislodged sign was on the landowner’s property (i.e., the sidewalk that the landowner installed and maintained). At the heart of our law is the notion that a party’s “duty of reasonable care toward another turns on whether the imposition of such a duty satisfies an abiding sense of basic fairness under all of the circumstances in light of considerations of *421public policy.” Hopkins v. Fox & Lazo Realtors, 132 N.J. 426, 439, 625 A.2d 1110 (1993). Fairness would require that in certain circumstances a commercial landowner should be free of legal responsibility, such as when a defective condition is far removed from that party’s control. That is not this ease based on the facts and circumstances set forth meticulously in the Court’s opinion.
For affirmance in part/reversal in part — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, ALBIN and WALLACE — 7.
Opposed — None.