The Strip Mall

Q: My coworker and I got to the parking lot.  It had been plowed, but we needed to remove some leftover snow in order to open the gate to our customer’s dumpster.  After we had emptied and pushed it back, we started walking out.  After a couple of steps, I slipped and fell on black ice, in the area that we had just shoveled.

This was at 11:00 p.m.  There had been no precipitation since 4 a.m.  The property has two tenants.  The other one has a separate dumpster area next to our customer’s, with a common divider fence, but two separate gates.  Our customer would have its own contractor do the snow plowing.

A: It seems that the hazardous condition had been present for at least nineteen hours.  If the snow and ice would have been completely removed and the parking lot surface would have been salted, the snow and ice condition would not have been present.

Your attorney will argue that the landlord had a nondelegable duty to provide the public with reasonably safe premises and a safe means of ingress and egress.  Your attorney also will argue that, like the owner, your customer had a duty to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition: that a tenant has a duty to remove dangerous or defective conditions, even though the landlord may have explicitly agreed in the lease to maintain the premises and keep them in good repair.

By: Scott Baron,
Attorney at Law Advertorial

The law responds to changed conditions; exceptions and variations abound. Here, the information is general; always seek out competent counsel. This article shall not be construed as legal advice.

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