RICHARD UNDERHILL VS. BOROUGH OF CALDWELL (L-1631-17, ESSEX COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-1800-18T4
RICHARD UNDERHILL and
LINDA UNDERHILL, his wife,
Plaintiffs-Appellants, APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION
v. May 21, 2020
APPELLATE DIVISION
BOROUGH OF CALDWELL,
ELEVADO SUAREZ, APOLONIO
SUAREZ, PETER PETROCHKO,
SUPER FOODTOWN OF CALDWELL,
HAJ SUPERMARKETS REALTY
HOLDINGS, LLC, and 356
BLOOMFIELD AVENUE, LLC,
Defendants,
and
CAROL DAKIN and SUSAN FIELDS,
Defendants-Respondents.
________________________________
Submitted April 20, 2020 – Decided May 21, 2020
Before Judges Sabatino, Geiger and Natali.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
Division, Essex County, Docket No. L-1631-17.
Piro Zinna Cifelli Paris & Genitempo, LLC, attorney
for appellants (Daniel Robert Bevere, of counsel and on
the briefs).
Weiner Law Group LLP, attorney for respondents
(Adam Kenny, of counsel and on the briefs).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
SABATINO, P.J.A.D.
This personal injury case arises from a pedestrian's fall on black ice in a
parking lot leased by private owners to the Borough of Caldwell. The injured
pedestrian and his wife sued both the Borough and the private owners, alleging
negligent failure to maintain the parking lot and the internal driveway connected
to it in a safe condition.
The written lease between the owners and the Borough expressly
delegates to the Borough the responsibility to clear the premises of ice and snow.
The Borough and the property owners moved for summary judgment. The
trial court granted the Borough's motion, finding no basis for its liability. It
found plaintiffs had failed to establish actual or constructive notice of a
dangerous condition. Plaintiffs have not appealed that ruling as to the Borough.
The court also granted summary judgment to the property owners in a
separate ruling apparently predicated on the absence of notice. Plaintiffs now
appeal that ruling, arguing the property owners had a non-delegable duty under
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tort law to keep the premises safe from accumulated ice and snow, or
alternatively, that the language of the lease does not delegate that duty with
sufficient clarity.
We affirm, albeit for a legal reason not articulated by the trial court. Based
on the Supreme Court's very recent opinion in Shields v. Ramslee Motors, 240
N.J. 479 (2020), the property owners are entitled to summary judgment as a
matter of law. That is because the lease explicitly delegates to the Borough the
exclusive responsibility to remove snow and ice from the premises.
I.
We summarize the pertinent facts in the record, doing so in a light most
favorable to plaintiffs. Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 540
(1995).
On March 6, 2015, plaintiff Richard Underhill1 parked his car in a
municipal parking lot known as the Kaplan lot, located near the intersection of
Bloomfield Avenue and Brookside Place in the Borough of Caldwell.
1
Linda Underhill is a co-plaintiff in this lawsuit solely to assert per quod claims
arising out of her husband Richard's accident. Hence, our references to
"Underhill" and "plaintiff" mean Richard Underhill, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
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Accompanied by his wife and friends, Underhill walked across the street to eat
dinner at a nearby restaurant.
After the group finished dinner, Underhill and his wife crossed the street
to return to their parked car. Underhill walked up the internal driveway that
connected the street to the Kaplan parking lot. When he reached the top, he
turned left where the driveway continued towards the parking lot. According to
Underhill, as he was turning, he slipped on what he described as "black ice" that
had accumulated on the blacktop pavement.
The police were notified of the incident, and Underhill was transported to
a local hospital for treatment. As an alleged result of his fall, Underhill suffered
injuries, the most severe of which was a fractured right hip, which later had to
be replaced.
The Kaplan parking lot and the connecting driveway are owned by
defendants Carol Dakin and Susan Fields. It is undisputed that Dakin and Fields
leased the property to the Borough in September 1998 for a term of
approximately twenty years. The Borough paid Dakin and Fields rent in the
amount "equal to all land taxes for each calendar year."
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Pursuant to the terms of the lease agreement, the Borough was
contractually responsible for maintenance of the lot, including snow and ice
removal. The relevant provisions of the lease agreement provided:
ARTICLE 5: MAINTENANCE
The Lessee, at its sole cost and expense, shall at all times
during the continuance of this Lease:
(a) Keep all its improvements, including the pavement, on the
demised premises in good order, and condition and repair;
(b) Police and light the demised premises; and
(c) Keep the demised premises free of obstructions, snow, and
ice.
[(Emphasis added).]
Underhill and his wife filed suit in the Law Division alleging negligence
and loss of consortium. Their complaint named as defendants the Borough,
Dakin, Fields, and several other individuals and businesses whom plaintiffs
believed may have maintained ownership or control of the Kaplan lot at the time
of Underhill's fall.
The parties do not dispute that it had been snowing intermittentl y during
the five days leading up to Underhill's fall. It is also undisputed that the Borough
engaged in extensive snow removal on all of the Borough's roadways and
properties, both leased and owned, between March 1 and March 6, 2015. During
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this time, nine employees of the Borough's Department of Public Works worked
for more than one hundred overtime hours, plowing, removing snow, salting,
and sanding on Borough properties and roads, as the winter storm actively
continued during that period. The Kaplan lot was included in these snow and
ice removal activities.
Plaintiffs retained a liability expert who issued a written report for the
litigation. The expert asserted in his report that "there are several low spots [in
the access driveway] that [caused] water to remain in puddles after precipitation
events." According to the expert, these "low spots may have been present at the
initial installation of the asphalt, may have developed over time . . . or may have
developed from vehicular turning movements in the area." Therefore, "the
failure to eliminate the depressions at the rear [of the] access driveway allowed
the stormwater runoff caused by the [snow and rain] of the five days prior to the
March 6, 2015 [incident] to remain and then to form into ice and remain frozen
on the date of the incident." Consequently, Underhill "slipped on the ice and
thus caused his injuries."
Plaintiffs learned during discovery that the parking lot was owned by
Dakin and Fields and was leased to and maintained by the Borough. As a result
of this information, all named defendants other than the Borough, Dakin, and
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Fields were dismissed from the case, either through voluntary dismissal or
summary judgment.
Represented by common counsel, the Borough, Dakin, and Fields moved
for summary judgment. Following oral argument, the court granted summary
judgment to these movants in two successive decisions, thereby dismissing
plaintiffs' case in its entirety.
With respect to the Borough, the court found that plaintiffs' expert report,
which concluded that depressions in the driveway had caused the buildup of ice,
did not establish when those depressions were created or how long they had been
there. Hence, plaintiffs were unable to establish that the Borough had adequate
notice of the accumulation of ice in the driveway depressions. Because of the
lack of notice, the court declined to reach the Borough's defense of common law
immunity for snow and ice removal. See Rochinsky v. State, Dept. of Transp.,
110 N.J. 399 (1988); Miehl v. Darpino, 53 N.J. 49 (1968).
Although its reasoning was less clear with respect to the property owners,
the trial court appears to have likewise concluded there was no proof they had
notice of the dangerous condition. The court did not rest upon the delegation
clause in the lease. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment to Dakin
and Fields.
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Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration as to the court's dismissal of the
property owners. The trial court denied their motion.
Plaintiffs then filed the present appeal, confined to the property owners
only. After their merits briefs were submitted, the Supreme Court issued its
decision in Shields, and we requested and considered supplemental briefs from
counsel addressing that precedent.
II.
In order to prove a claim of negligence, a plaintiff must demonstrate: "(1)
a duty of care, (2) that the duty has been breached, (3) proximate causation, and
(4) injury." Townsend v. Pierre, 221 N.J. 36, 51 (2015) (quoting Polzo v. Cty.
of Essex, 196 N.J. 569 (2008)). A plaintiff bears the burden of proving
negligence, see Reichert v. Vegholm, 366 N.J. Super. 209, 213 (App. Div. 2004),
and must prove that unreasonable acts or omissions by the defendant
proximately caused his or her injuries, Camp v. Jiffy Lube No. 114., 309 N.J.
Super. 305, 309-11 (App. Div. 1998).
Here, we focus on the necessary predicate of whether a duty of care was
owed by the defendant property owners to remove ice and snow from the parking
lot and internal driveway they leased to the Borough. We need not discuss the
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other elements of negligence, because, applying Shields, those defendants owed
no such duty to plaintiffs.
In Shields, the Court framed the issue before it as "whether the owner of
a commercial property owes its tenant's invitee a duty to clear snow and ice from
the property's driveway while the property is in the sole possession and control
of the tenant." 240 N.J. at 483. The Court's six-member majority answered that
query in the negative.
The plaintiff in Shields was delivering mail to a used car dealership when
he slipped and fell on ice on the car dealerships' driveway. Id. at 484. The
dealership was leasing the property from a landlord. The trial court granted the
landlord's motion for summary judgment, finding the landlord was not
responsible for removing snow and ice from the property. Ibid. This court
reversed, holding that the lease was silent as to who was responsible for snow
and ice removal from the driveway, and in any event, the landlord owed what
we considered to be the same "non-delegable" duty to maintain the driveway
that it owed with respect to the sidewalks abutting a leased property. Ibid.
The Supreme Court reversed. Ibid. The majority opinion first determined
that the language in the parties' lease agreement implicitly delegated snow and
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ice removal duties to the tenant. Id. at 488-89. The Court then found that duty
could in fact be lawfully delegated. Id. at 490.
The Court found significant in Shields the fact that the defendant landlord
had relinquished control of the premises to the tenant car dealership. "The
landlord has vested the tenant with exclusive possession. In this case, it would
be 'unfair,' . . . to hold the landlord responsible for 'a condition of disrepair over
which it had relinquished access.'" 240 N.J. at 491 (quoting Vasquez v. Mansol
Realty Associates, Inc., 280 N.J. Super. 234, 237 (App. Div. 1995)).
In Vasquez, the owner of an office building had leased the premises to a
commercial tenant. 280 N.J. Super. at 235. The tenant agreed in the lease to
maintain and clear snow and ice from the premises, including the abutting public
sidewalk. Ibid. An employee of the tenant slipped and fell on the public
sidewalk in front of the building due to an accumulation of snow and ice. Ibid.The trial court dismissed the employees' claims against the landlord, and this
court reversed. Id. at 237. Relying on Supreme Court precedent, see Stewart v.
104 Wallace Street, Inc., 87 N.J. 146 (1981) (holding a commercial landlord has
a well-established duty to maintain an abutting sidewalk in reasonably good
condition); Mirza v. Filmore Corp., 92 N.J. 390 (1983) (extending that duty to
include the removal of snow and ice), we ruled that the commercial landlord had
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a non-delegable duty to remove snow and ice from the property's abutting
sidewalk. In addition, we noted, "this is not a situation where the owner has
vested a tenant with exclusive possession and no longer has the power of entry
into the premises to make repairs." Vasquez, 280 N.J. Super. at 237.
By factual contrast in Shields, several provisions of the car dealership's
lease with the landlord stated that the dealership was solely responsible for the
demised property. Id. at 492. Moreover, the dealership's conduct reflected it
was responsible for clearing snow and ice, as it had done so the night before the
incident. Ibid. Additionally, the driveway was separated from the sidewalk by
a fence, which could be closed by the dealership to restrict access to the public.
Ibid. In sum, the Court found in Shields "the undisputed evidence in the record
shows that the landlord did not enjoy the sort of control over the subject
driveway that would give rise to a duty of care." Ibid.
The Court further analyzed in Shields whether the landlord owed the
plaintiff a duty of care by considering the factors established in Hopkins v. Fox
& Lazo Realtors, 132 N.J. 426 (1993). In Hopkins, the Court departed from the
"traditional categorical approach to liability based on the status of the plaintiff."
Shields, 240 N.J. at 492. Instead, it reasoned that "[w]hether a person owes a
duty of reasonable care toward another turns on whether the imposition of such
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a duty satisfies an abiding sense of basic fairness under all of the circumstances
in light of considerations of public policy." Hopkins, 132 N.J. at 439. The four
Hopkins factors courts should consider are "[1] the relationship of the parties,
[2] the nature of the attendant risk, [3] the opportunity and ability to exercise
care, and [4] the public interest in the proposed solution." Ibid.The majority in Shields reached "the same result by application of the
Hopkins factors that [it] did [by] considering control." Shields, 240 N.J. at 493.
Applying the first of the Hopkins factors, the Court found the landlord had no
ongoing relationship with the plaintiff. The landlord had no knowledge of who
visited the property and offered no services to them. Visitors had no reason to
know that the dealership was not itself the owner of the property. Ibid.
The second factor, the nature of the attended risk, favored not imposing a
duty on the landlord in Shields. The majority stated, "[a]lthough hazards posed
by winter weather are generally readily foreseeable, they are also transient. It
would not be fair to place responsibility for removal of snow and ice on a
commercial landlord that lacks control over the property." Ibid. Instead, the
dealership, with control over the driveway and tools at hand to eliminate the
risk, "should be held solely responsible for the safety of its invitees." Ibid.
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The Court found the third Hopkins factor, "the opportunity and ability to
exercise care," weighed in favor of not imposing a duty on the landlord. Id. at
494. The majority reasoned that it would be impractical to require the landlord
to prevent the harm accompanying temporarily slippery conditions caused by
weather on property that it does not control. Ibid. In such settings, the landlord
does not maintain a presence on the property and does not have access to
information about the condition of the property. Ibid. By contrast, the tenant
kept tools for resolving the problem of removing snow and ice and regularly did
so. Ibid.
Finally, as to the fourth Hopkins factor, the Shields majority determined
that "[h]olding a landlord liable for snow and ice on demised property would not
serve any public policy interest." Ibid. The Court presumed the plaintiff could
pursue redress by potentially recovering from the dealership. Ibid.
In sum, the Court's majority in Shields concluded that an analysis of the
Hopkins factors, as well as its "application of the classic control-based liability
analysis specific to the landlord-tenant context dictates that, in fairness, the
entity with control over the property is the entity that should be held
responsible." Ibid.
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Justice Albin authored a concurrence in part. Id. at 495. He agreed that
the tenant in Shields, and not the landlord, had the sole responsibility to clear
the driveway of snow and ice. Ibid. Justice Albin did express his view, however,
that a landlord that retains sufficient control over its property to make safety
repairs should not be able to extinguish its common law duty under tort law to
exercise reasonable care to guard against foreseeable dangers. Ibid. He
disagreed that the tenant maintained exclusive control, as the lease terms
permitted the landlord to enter the premises for the purpose of examining and
making repairs. Id. at 496.
Justice Albin observed that if a landlord has retained authority to enter the
premises to make safety repairs that would prevent a person from being seriously
harmed, it should have a duty to do so if reasonable under the totality of the
circumstances. Id. at 499. Ultimately, however, he concluded that although the
landlord in Shields had the authority to enter the property to repair any
dangerous conditions of which it was aware, "given the transient condition of
the ice and snow in the driveway in this case, the landlord had no practicable
way to know that the tenant would not clear the driveway in a timely way and
therefore no reasonable opportunity to remedy the situation." Ibid.
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Plaintiffs argue this case is distinguishable from Shields for two reasons.
First, they note the lease agreement in Shields explicitly stated that the
dealership "shall be solely responsible for the maintenance and repair of the land
and any structure placed on the premise at any time and from time to time during
the lease, as if TENANT were the de facto owner of the leased premises." Id. at
485. Here, Article 5 of the lease agreement states the Borough will bear the
"cost and expense" of maintenance. Plaintiffs contend this difference in
verbiage is significant because the lease does not place upon the tenant the sole
responsibility for performing these functions on the Borough, unlike in Shields.
We disagree. To the contrary, the language in the lease agreement in this
case more clearly delegates to the tenant the duty to remove snow and ice. The
lease broadly states that "[t]he Lessee . . . shall at all times during the
continuance of the Lease . . . [k]eep the demised premises free of obstructions,
snow and ice." The lease in Shields referred only to "maintenance," and was
silent on which party bore the specific responsibility of snow and ice removal.
The lease here also does not contain any provisions that permit the landlords to
reenter and make repairs, unlike in Shields.
Second, plaintiffs contend this case is distinguishable from Shields
because here we are dealing with a "public" driveway and parking lot, as
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opposed to the "private" driveway in Shields. Therefore, it was not only
anticipated, but expected, that members of the public would traverse the parking
lot and driveway to use the stores and businesses in the area. Plaintiffs argue
this makes the driveway in this case akin to the sidewalk in Vasquez, as opposed
to the driveway in Shields, and therefore defendants, as the property owners,
bore a non-delegable duty to remove snow and ice.
We reject this argument as well. The Court's majority in Shields made no
distinction between the private or public status of the tenant. Instead, the Court
held that "in fairness, the entity with control over the property is the entity that
should be held responsible." Id. at 494. (Emphasis added). The Court
accordingly declined to hold "the landlord responsible for property over which
it had relinquished control." Ibid.
Here, it is not disputed that the Borough maintained control over the
Kaplan lot and driveway during the term of its lease. The lease delegated to it
snow and ice removal, and there is undisputed evidence in the record that the
Borough had performed snow and ice removal for several days in a row leading
up to Underhill's fall.
Like the driveway in Shields, the Kaplan lot and connecting driveway
where Underhill fell were within the exclusive control of the tenant Borough.
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The lease agreement sufficiently and expressly delegated snow and ice removal
duties to it, and the Borough thereafter consistently performed those duties. See
Geringer v. Hartz Mountain Development Corp., 388 N.J. Super. 392, 400-01
(App. Div. 2006) (holding, outside the context of a snow and ice removal case,
that a commercial landlord owed no duty to repair or maintain interior stairway
within the leased premises on which tenant's employee slipped and fell because
tenant agreed to undertake all repairs in the lease agreement).
The factual circumstances here are distinguishable from those in Vasquez,
in which we held a property owner had a non-delegable duty to remove snow
and ice from the public sidewalk abutting its premises. 280 N.J. Super. at 237-
38. The location of the present accident was not a public sidewalk. Instead, it
was a parking lot and an internal driveway connected to it. We reject plaintiffs'
attempt to analogize the parking lot, because it was used by the tenant as a
municipal facility, to a public sidewalk that abuts a public street. The Borough's
decision to use the premises for public parking did not thrust upon the landlords
a non-delegable duty of care to clear snow and ice within the interior perimeter
of the premises. That duty was assumed by the Borough when it entered into
the lease.
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At least three of the four Hopkins factors lead analytically to the same
result. The first factor, the relationship between the parties, does not fav or the
imposition of a duty on Dakin and Fields. As in Shields, there was no ongoing
relationship between the landlords and the tenant. Dakin and Fields had no
knowledge of who visited the property and offered no services nor derived any
benefit from them. Visitors "had no reason to know" the Borough "was not itself
the owner of the property." Shields, 240 N.J. at 493.
The second Hopkins factor, the nature of the attendant risk, focuses on
"whether the risk is foreseeable, whether it can be readily defined, and whether
it is fair to place the burden on preventing the harm upon the defendant." Ibid.
(quoting Davis v. Devereux Found., 209 N.J. 269, 296 (2012)). This factor
favors Dakin and Fields as well. As the Court in Shields articulated, "[a]lthough
hazards posed by winter weather are generally readily foreseeable, they are also
transient. It would not be fair to place responsibility for removal of snow and
ice on a commercial landlord that lacks control over the property." Ibid.The third Hopkins factor is "the opportunity and ability to exercise care."
Id. at 494. This analysis is similar to the analysis of control. Ibid. The Shields
majority commented as to this factor, "[i]t would be impractical to require the
landlord here to prevent the harm accompanying temporarily slippery conditions
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caused by weather on property that it does not control." Ibid. The landlord
"does not maintain a presence on the property and does not have access to
information about the condition of the property. By contrast, the tenant kept
tools for resolving the problem and regularly did so." Ibid.As we have already noted, the Borough regularly performed snow and ice
removal on the parking lot and driveway. Although Dakin and Fields had access
to the property by virtue of it being open to members of the public (including
them), the third Hopkins factor favors a determination that they do not owe the
duty advocated by plaintiffs.
The fourth Hopkins factor concerning the public interest can be
reasonably debated. Because of the Borough's non-liability, including the
common law snow and ice immunity, persons who are injured on hazardous
leased premises could be left without recourse. However, that also would have
been true if the Borough had owned and operated the premises. 2
2
We note the limited exception in Bligen v. Jersey City Hous. Auth., 131 N.J.
124 (1993), for public entities that operate public housing projects, is not
applicable here. In his concurring opinion in Lathers v. Twp. of W. Windsor,
308 N.J. Super. 301 (App. Div. 1998), Judge Dreier questioned the wisdom of
the breadth of the snow and ice immunity, but neither the Court nor the
Legislature have limited the immunity nor extended the Bligen exception any
further to date.
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In addition, there may be public policies that favor allowing
municipalities to lease properties from private owners on advantageous terms to
taxpayers that do not require the payment of rent or substantial rent. If,
hypothetically, the duty to clear ice and snow within the internal boundaries of
the premises were held to be non-delegable, private would-be landlords might
be reluctant to lease to public entities or require greater consideration. We leave
that ultimate policy assessment to the Court or the Legislature.
Given this analysis, we are guided by Shields and conclude the trial court
appropriately granted summary judgment to the property owners, albeit for
different reasons than the motion judge expressed. See Hayes v. Delamotte, 231
N.J. 373, 387 (2018) (applying the well-settled principle that appeals are taken
from orders and not opinions, and that orders may be affirmed for reasons
different from those set forth by the trial court).
Affirmed.
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