New Jersey Court Answers The Burning Question: Can I Sue The Owner Of An Abandoned Church If I Slip And Fall On The Sidewalk Outside The Church?

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

The facts and legal issues in sidewalk slip and fall cases sometimes read like they are pulled from law school final exams. In New Jersey, the baseline legal rule is clear — owners of commercial properties generally have a duty to maintain, in reasonably good condition, the sidewalks abutting their property, while owners of residential properties do not. But does a property owner have a duty to maintain its sidewalks when:

the property is both residential and commercial, like a multi-family home where one unit is owner occupied and the others are rented (click here for more on that, but the short answer is that it depends on whether the property is primarily residential or primarily commercial ); or
the plaintiff is a tenant and sues the landlord after slipping on a sidewalk outside the rental property (click here for more on that, but usually, yes); or
the property is a commercial property, final judgment of foreclosure has been entered in favor of the lender, but no sheriff's sale has been scheduled (click here for more on that, but if the lender can be considered a mortgagee in possession, then yes); or
the property is owned by a condominium or common-interest community (click here for more, but generally, yes if it's a private sidewalk within the condominium, no if it's a public sidewalk abutting the condominium); or
the property is residential and the fall is caused by sweetgum spikey seed pods that fell from a tree on the defendant's property (click here, but, no).

And now one more can be added to the list thanks to the Appellate Division's decision is Ellis v. Hilton United Methodist Church, where the question presented was whether "sidewalk liability applies to an owner of a vacant church."

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Let Sleeping Dogs Lie . . . Just Not In A Hallway Where They Might Create A Dangerous Condition?

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

When is a sleeping dog a dangerous condition? This is the burning question that the Appellate Division answered in Parella v. Compeau.

In Parella, plaintiff attended Christmas dinner at a friend's house along with approximately 20 other guests. After the second course, she got up from her chair to put her dish in the kitchen sink and check on her child who was in an another room. To do so, she had to walk behind several seated guests. She did not have to ask anyone to move until she got to the last guest in the row. That guest moved her chair in and plaintiff made a move familiar to anyone who has been to a crowded holiday dinner — she "lifted [her] glass and plate, turned her back to the wall and shuffled her feet to pass behind [the] chair." "As she cleared the chair, plaintiff turned right to enter the hall toward the kitchen, and fell."

What caused her fall was a "tan, fairly large dog" that was "lying in the hallway, past the threshold of the dining room." The dog did not belong to defendants, the owners of the house and the hosts of the party, and was one of two dogs in the house for the party. When plaintiff fell, the wine glass she was holding broke, cutting her finger and severing a tendon. Plaintiff sued, alleging that defendants failed to warn of her of a dangerous condition — the dog — in their home. The trial court granted summary judgment to defendants and plaintiff appealed.

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Shortcut Across Bank Parking Lot Leads To A Slip And Fall, But No Liability For The Bank

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

I tagged this post in the "banking" category even though its only connection to banking is that it involves a slip-and-fall that occurred in a bank parking lot. But, it offers yet another example of something I have written about before — liability of property owners for accidents that occur on their property.

In Negron v. Warriner's Construction Co., plaintiff slipped on ice and snow in a PNC Bank parking lot that he was using as a short cut to get from his home to a nearby Dollar Store. A morning snow storm dropped approximately 5-6 inches of snow on the area. After the snow stopped, the parking lot was plowed and salted. Plaintiff, who lives across the street from the bank, actually watched the lot get plowed and salted. Several hours after the lot was plowed, a light snowfall covered the lot again with a dusting of snow and, in certain spots, ice underneath.

At around 9 pm, after the second snowfall, plaintiff left his home for the Dollar Store. "Rather than staying on public sidewalks, plaintiff took his normal route by taking a shortcut across the PNC Bank parking lot." This was apparently not uncommon in the neighborhood; residents regularly cut across the lot. There were no fences or gates preventing them from doing so, but there was a "No Trespassing" sign. There was also a sign restricting parking to only bank customers, but this was frequently ignored by neighborhood residents who parked their cars in the lot.

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New Jersey Supreme Court Answers Burning Question: When is a converted garage a “building” under New Jersey’s Anti-Eviction Act?

When my wife and I lived in Hoboken, one of our favorite restaurants was Court Street. It is located on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Court Street. We went there at least once a week for most of the time we lived in Hoboken. (Great food, good atmosphere, a little off the beaten path. You should check it out.) Little did I know at the time that we were looking out from the restaurant onto a "building" that was the subject of a long-running landlord-tenant dispute that was only recently resolved by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

I used quotation marks around "building" because the issue in Cashin v. Bello was whether the word "building" as used in the Anti-Eviction Act denotes a single, unattached physical structure or whether it includes all structures owned by an individual that are located on the same parcel of land. This issue was more than just semantics to the parties involved because if the Supreme Court endorsed the former then defendant could be evicted, but if it endorsed the latter, then defendant could stay. Unfortunately for the tenant, the Supreme Court endorsed the former.

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Complex Commercial Tenancies Often Test The Limits Of The Summary Eviction Process

I recently co-authored an article, entitled "Commercial Tenancies, Complexities, And The Limits Of the Summary Eviction Process," that discusses, as the title suggests, situations where commercial landlord-tenant matters may be too complicated for the normal, summary eviction process in New Jersey courts. Here are the first few paragraphs:

New Jersey tenants who don't pay, including commercial tenants, may be swiftly dispossessed of their leasehold pursuant to the Summary Dispossess Statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-51 to -61 (the "Statute"). The Statute gives landlords the right to seek the removal of tenants who do not pay rent, or who otherwise violate the terms of the lease. The Statute establishes a summary eviction process, which as its name implies, is "summary" in nature and, among other things, does not provide for formal discovery and typically does not involve issues other than possession. From the filing of the summary dispossession complaint it is not uncommon for a tenant to be dispossessed within 90 days or less.

However, what happens when a tenant is not paying rent for a valid reason or due to a legitimate dispute with a landlord? Can that tenant also be summarily dispossessed? Recognizing the limits of a process that by design is "summary" in nature, New Jersey Courts have answered that question "No." The mechanism to stave off the summary dispossession is the motion to transfer to the Law Division, which remedy is exercisable by a court, at its discretion, if the issues are of "sufficient importance" that proceeding in a summary fashion would not do justice. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-60. Typically, matters of "sufficient importance" involve complex issues and/or the need for discovery.

Please check out the full article here.