Since the New Jersey Supreme Court decision in Stewart v. 104 Wallace St., Inc., 87 N.J. 146 (1981), commercial property owners have owed a duty to maintain the sidewalks abutting their property in a safe condition, just as they must anywhere else on their premises. Then and ever since, the Court has not addressed whether a similar duty exists as to residential property owners but instead, has implored the New Jersey Legislature to do so. It has been 43 years since Stewart was decided, and the Legislature still has not addressed the issue as it pertains to residential properties.
Presently, residential property owners are effectively immunized from liability for pedestrian sidewalk injuries because the law says that they owe no duty to maintain their sidewalks in a safe condition if they did not create the sidewalk defect. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s municipalities often also avoid liability by passing ordinances that make homeowners responsible for maintaining their adjacent sidewalks or arguing they had no actual or constructive notice of the defect.
It has come time for the Court to take up the issue of residential property owner sidewalk liability. A pedestrian’s right to safe passage along a sidewalk should not depend upon whether the pedestrian is walking next to a commercial or a residential property. Just as the Court recently pronounced in Padilla v. Young II, 2024WL 2967043 that all commercial property owners are liable for defective sidewalk conditions adjacent to their property, whether that property is in use or vacant, it is logical that pedestrians should be assured of the ‘right of the public to safe and unimpeded passage along the sidewalk’ in front of residential properties.
The Supreme Court must resolve the doctrinal chasm concerning sidewalk liability between residential and commercial property owners.
As the law now stands, innocent pedestrians who are injured because of a defective condition while traversing a sidewalk abutting a residential property are effectively barred from pursuing a claim against a residential property owner, while the municipality places responsibility for maintenance on said homeowner. The time is now for our State’s Supreme Court to resolve this imperative issue. Currently pending before the Supreme Court is the Petition for Certification of Patterson v. Camden Cnty., et al., Docket No.: A-1774-22, where the homeowner was insulated from liability by current case law and the government entity avoided responsibility by having placed responsibility for sidewalk maintenance upon the homeowner.
WHEN NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE, NO ONE IS SAFE.