Court Opinion

ID: 9732303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:14:48.251543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:25.859959
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
concurring.
According to the majority in the Appellate Division this Court's opinions in Stewart v. 104 Wallace St., Inc., 87 N.J. 146 (1981), and Mirza v. Filmare Corp., 92 N.J. 390 (1983), “changed the law, newly imposing * * * liability [for injuries caused by failure to maintain abutting sidewalks in reasonably safe condition] on commercial property owners only.” That liability, in the view of the majority below, did not extend to nonprofit charitable property owners such as defendants before us.
The dissenter below agreed with his colleagues in the majority that the Stewart rule of abutting owner liability is confined to commercial landowners. The point of departure that produced his dissent — and hence the basis for the only issue before us, R. 2:2-1(a)(2), there having been no Petition for Certification by either party seeking to broaden the questions for review (see Stone v. Old Bridge, 111 N.J. 110, 123 (1988) (dissenting opinion)) — was his conclusion that this Court, “in establishing the broad categories of ‘commercial’ and ‘residential,’ intended to include property owned by religious corporations and even municipal corporations within the ‘commercial’ category.” Hence the dissenter would have reversed the trial court and remanded for trial.
As does the majority, I too would reverse and remand, with, however, a significant caveat. I have always believed, and continue to believe, that Stewart, Mirza, and Cogliati v. Ecco High Frequency Corp., 92 N.J. 402 (1983), were wrongly decided. See Stewart, supra, 87 N.J. at 162 (dissenting opinion); Mirza, supra, 92 N.J. at 401 (concurring opinion); and Cogliati, *340supra, 92 N.J. at 418 (concurring opinion). But I have long since given up the ghost, and have bowed to the principle of stare decisis with what I would hope is becoming grace if not with any enthusiasm or depth of conviction. Should enough votes materialize (I do not discern them on the horizon), I would do a U-turn and restore Yanhko v. Fane, 70 N.J. 528 (1976), to its position as representative of this state’s sidewalk law.
For today’s purposes I would acknowledge that the state of the law is such that plaintiff may have a cause of action against an owner of commercial property abutting a public sidewalk but not against the owner of abutting residential property. Because I agree with those who would include St. Venantius’s property in the “commercial” category, at least for sidewalk-liability purposes, I side with the majority.
But there is another problem. Justice Pollock has chosen to go beyond the single issue presented — namely, whether the subject property falls within the classification of “commercial” for purposes of imposition of liability a la Stewart — and to address anew the question, alien to this appeal, of whether there should be yet a further expansion of the sidewalk liability of abutting owners. I would not reach that question. We went to pains in 1979 to amend Rule 2:2-1(a)(2) to limit our review in cases that came to us because of a dissent in the Appellate Division. The disappointed party’s appeal as of right is limited to “those issues as to which[] there is a dissent * * *.” R. 2:2-1(a)(2). Beyond that the parties are consigned to the Petition-for-Certification route. R. 2:2 — 1(b). See supra at 327.
Were I, like Justice Pollock, to breeze right by that restriction on our jurisdiction and go beyond the “residential-commercial” question to address the broader issue, I would reach the same result as Justice Pollock — that is, I would scrap the distinctions based on the use to which the abutting property is put and would permit the imposition of liability against the occupier of abutting property for failure to take reasonable *341steps to remove snow and ice that impedes the public’s right of free passage. See also Stewart, supra, 87 N.J. at 160-62 (Schreiber, J., concurring) (in the absence of municipal maintenance of sidewalks, an abutting owner owes “a duty of due care to maintain a public sidewalk * * * so that it does not constitute a hazard to members of the public lawfully using it.” Id. at 160).
Even though I am unhappy with — but accept — the imposition of liability on a commercial owner, why should we draw a distinction between a commercial owner and a residential or any other kind of owner for purposes of the imposition of liability in favor of an innocent pedestrian? No more today than I could thirteen years ago can I find a principled basis for that distinction. See Davis v. Pecorino, 69 N.J. 1, 9-12 (1975) (dissenting opinion). I continue to wonder “why * * * a business operator [should] have imposed on him a legal duty [that] 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.” Id. at 12.
Therefore, swallowing hard on what I perceive to be the essential silliness of our current rule, but accepting the fact that my yearning for the good old days of Yanhko, supra, 70 N.J. 528, is not about to be fulfilled, I find myself in substantial agreement with Justice Pollock’s reasoning that takes him, and therefore me, to the same result as the majority.