To the extent that it prevents property owners from evading responsibility for failing to take reasonable precautions following a snow or ice storm, this week's Supreme Judicial Court decision upholding a Peabody man's right to sue a chain department store in Danvers was a good thing. But given the legal minefield it creates, the ruling could also be a nightmare for businesses and homeowners.
Oddly, given the number of lawyers populating the Legislature, Massachusetts was one of the few states that exempted property owners from liability for injuries caused by "natural" accumulations of snow and ice. But in what a former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association termed "a major, major decision," the SJC this week ruled that Emmanuel Papadopoulos, 84, does indeed have standing to sue for a fall he suffered when he slipped on a icy patch of snow while returning to his car parked outside the Target store in Danvers on Dec. 20, 2002.
Damages, if any, will be determined by the Superior Court to which the case was returned. But the more-than-century-old standard that property owners could not be held liable for injury caused by the natural accumulation of snow or ice, has been jettisoned. Instead, according to Associate Justice Ralph Gants in his majority opinion, it will now be up to a jury to decide whether a property owner has taken "reasonable" measures to keep his premises safe after a snowfall or quick freeze.
It will likely take many years for courts and juries to produce the kind of precedent that determines what constitutes reasonable preventive measures in different circumstances. Meanwhile businesses and homeowners will have to decide for themselves the amount of effort that should go into shoveling and sanding. Our advice: Better safe than sorry.
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