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NJ Supreme Court: Commercial Property Owners Have a Duty to Maintain Abutting Sidewalks

By Colleen Murphy
July 01, 2024

In a 4-3 decision on June 13, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed an Appellate Division opinion in a slip-and-fall case, concluding that all commercial landowners have a duty to maintain public sidewalks and are liable to pedestrians who are injured as a result of their negligent failure to do so.

The state Supreme Court certified the question of whether owners of vacant commercial lots are liable to pedestrians injured by poorly maintained sidewalks abutting those lots. Associate Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis penned the majority opinion for the court, finding the responsibility falls on the owners of these lots.

The dissent, penned by Associate Justice Lee A. Solomon, said that the majority purportedly relied on the principles of fairness to impose liability on the owner of a nonrevenue-generating lot and placed the burden on a commercial property owner with no means of addressing the resulting costs.

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