Court Opinion

ID: 9848960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:31:10.782885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:55.546686
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, C. J.,
dissenting.
Plaintiff and, to some extent, defendants characterize the issue as whether defendants “were negligent per se because they violated a municipal ordinance” about public sidewalks. The majority concludes that, “[a]s a matter of law, an accumulation of leaves can be one of the ‘other similar conditions’ for which the ordinance imposes duties and liabilities on abutting landowners.” 142 Or App at 131. The trial court erred, the majority holds, because “[p]laintiff was entitled to have the jury determine whether, on the facts presented in this case, the leaves on which she slipped constituted a hazard and whether her injury resulted from defendants’ failure to keep the sidewalk free from the alleged accumulation of leaves.” 142 Or App at 131-32. I disagree with both conclusions, and therefore dissent.
I agree with the majority that construction of municipal ordinances employs the same aids to interpretation that govern construction of statutes. I also accept that the primary tool of interpretation is examination of the text of the ordinance in some context. The majority does not suggest what the context of that examination is, unless perhaps the majority carries forward, as a context, an assumption that we are dealing with negligence per se. Part of the statutory context is not negligence per se, but a body of municipal law that has been developed by the Oregon Supreme Court.
In Fitzwater v. Sunset Empire, Inc., 263 Or 276, 502 P2d 214 (1972), the court summarized the law:
“The law is well established in this state, as elsewhere, that the defendant owed no common law duty to pedestrians to keep the public sidewalk free of ice and snow. Marsh v. McLaughlin et ux, 210 Or 84, 309 P2d 188 (1957); Rees v. Cobbs & Mitchell Co., 131 Or 665, 283 P 1115 (1930); 39 Am Jur 2d 918, Highways, Streets and Bridges § 517; 19 *133McQuillin (3d ed), Municipal Corporations § 54.42(b) at 104-05.
“It is also uniformly held that an ordinance requiring the property owner to keep the sidewalk free of ice and snow and imposing a penalty for failure to do so does not impose civil liability on the property owner in favor of a third person. Smith v. Meier & Frank Inv. Co., 87 Or 683, 171 P 555 (1918); Rees v. Cobbs & Mitchell Co., supra; Annot., 82 ALR2d 998, 999; 39 Am Jur 2d, supra, § 518 at 919; 19 McQuillin, supra at 106; 2 Restatement of Torts (Second) § 288, Comment d. Municipal ordinances requiring the removal of ice and snow upon a sidewalk are held to create a duty in favor of the city only. In effect, they merely require property owners to aid the city in the performance of its duty. Marsh v. McLaughlin et ux, supra; Rees v. Cobbs & Mitchell, supra; Major v. Fraser, 78 Nev 14, 368 P2d 369 (1962).” Id. at 279.
The court also held that:
“An ordinance requiring removal of the ice and snow does not impose liability on the abutting owner to third persons injured as a result of his failure to remove the ice and snow.”Id. at 283.
Whatever the duty of an abutting landowner to clear or repair the public sidewalk, it is a duty owed to the city, which has the primary responsibility to maintain the public sidewalk. If the duty is imposed by ordinance on the abutting landowner, failure to carry out that duty is not negligence as to a third party. Consequently, the concepts of duty, foreseeability and reasonable conduct are not germane to the analysis. The ordinance imposes liability without assignment of fault or, at least, only the minimal “fault” of “failure to so maintain the sidewalk.”
Although the duty to maintain inures to the benefit of the city, the ordinance here specifically creates a cause of action for third parties for injuries arising from the landowner’s failure to meet its duty to the city. The cause of action, however, is not for negligence. It is liability created by statute and particularly defined.
*134The body of case law I have described is part of the context in which we read the ordinance to determine the gov-, erning body’s intent. The ordinance imposes liability contrary to the common law; consequently, we should strictly construe it so that the relatively strict liability the ordinance imposes is constrained within the legislative intent. Under that type of construction, where doubt exists as to the intention of the city, the language of the ordinance must be interpreted in favor of the landowner and against any implied extension of liability. Lane County v. Heintz Const. Co. et al, 228 Or 152, 159, 364 P2d 627 (1961).
By ordinance, the city has absolved itself of liability for injury resulting from any accident on the public sidewalks “caused by ice, snow, encumbrances, obstructions, cracks, chipping, weeds, settling, holes covered by dirt, or other similar conditions.” The ordinance, DCC 5.564(3), requires abutting property owners to maintain the sidewalks “free from such conditions.” It also makes those property owners liable for injuries “to persons or property arising as a result of their failure to so maintain the sidewalks.”
Liability is imposed on the abutting landowner for injuries due to “ice, snow, encumbrances, obstructions, cracks, chipping, weeds, settling, holes covered by dirt, or other similar conditions.” That list of conditions in subsection (3) must be read in the light of the other subsections of the ordinance which impose a specific responsibility on the abutting landowners respecting those same conditions. Subsection (1) places a duty on the landowners to remove snow and ice within a particular period of time. Consequently, the duty to maintain the sidewalk and the liability for failure to maintain it tree from ice and snow is to alleviate the snow or icy condition within that time period. Liability for injury due to ice or snow, imposed in subsection (3), is for failure to do what is required by subsection (1).
Subsection (2) provides:
“No owner of property, improved or unimproved, abutting on a public sidewalk, shall permit the sidewalk to deteriorate to such a condition that, because of cracks, chipping, weeds, settling, covering by dirt, or other similar occurrences, the sidewalk becomes a hazard to persons using it.”
*135Reading subsections (2) and (3) in pari materia, the specific listed conditions or occurrences are modified by the requirement that the landowner not “permit the sidewalk to deteriorate.” Consequently, the conditions or occurrences are the result of deterioration, which denotes a much slower process than the transitory condition of debris that may blow or fall onto the sidewalk. It is a condition that results from deterioration and becomes a hazard that the landowner is required to alleviate and for which liability can be imposed.
As the majority notes, the city, by using the terms “other similar conditions,” and “other similar occurrences,” did not intend to limit the ordinance’s reach to the conditions or occurrences specifically enumerated. The similarity of the unspecified conditions or occurrences must be to those listed in subsection (3), but those in turn must be analyzed in conjunction with the particular duty imposed on landowners by subsections (1) and (2). In other words, conditions similar to those described in subsection (2) must be those resulting from deterioration that are permitted to become a hazard. The transitory nature of leaves on a sidewalk is simply not a similar condition or occurrence. The trial court was correct in so concluding.
The majority seems to agree that similar conditions refer to conditions that have the same characteristics as those enumerated. But the majority approaches the similarity construct by beginning and ending with the final criterion of subsection (2) — that from the enumerated or similar conditions the sidewalk becomes hazardous. From this premise, the majority then says that “leaves can be slippery and can mask other dangers.” 142 Or App at 131. In other words, leaves can be hazardous and thus constitute a similar condition. From this, the majority concludes that a leaf or leaves on a public sidewalk could be properly one of the “other similar conditions” for which the ordinance imposes duties and liabilities on abutting landowners.
The majority, however, leaves the final determination to the jury. It says:
“Plaintiff was entitled to have the jury determine whether, on the facts presented in this case, the leaves on which she slipped constituted a hazard and whether her injury *136resulted from defendants’ failure to keep the sidewalk free from the alleged accumulation of leaves.” 142 Or App at 131-32.
Whether the ordinance imposes a duty on abutting landowners to remove leaves and imposes liability for injury from leaves is a matter of construction of the ordinance and is a matter of law for the court. The trial court correctly declined to submit the issue to the jury.
What the majority concludes about leaves and the ordinance could also be said about candy wrappers, newspapers or a wet stick. They all have the potential of becoming a hazard to pedestrians on a public sidewalk. If plaintiff had slipped on a newspaper or wet stick, the jury could be left with the job of determining if defendants were liable for failure to remove this hazard under the dictates of subsections (2) and (3).
The job the majority would tender to the jury becomes even more difficult because the majority also says that leaves can become one of the conditions specifically enumerated in the ordinance: an “encumbrance.” It defines an encumbrance as something that impedes or hampers the natural or requisite function of pedestrian traffic. An encumbrance is, apparently, anything that would cause a pedestrian to slip or stumble or suffer injury in some fashion. I do not understand how a leaf or leaves, wet or dry, can be an encumbrance, even under the most liberal definition suggested by the majority.
The majority would thus leave the jury with at least two alternatives; determining whether the leaves on the sidewalk were a hazard, or whether they constituted an “encumbrance.” Again, I do not understand how a jury could lawfully resolve either of those questions of law, even under the most creative instructions. Whether the ordinance is applicable to the facts that a jury could find is a matter for the court.
In summary, I conclude that the ordinance does not impose a duty on abutting landowners to remove leaves from the sidewalk .or liability for failure to do so. The trial court was correct. Therefore, I dissent.