With the Winter season quickly coming upon us, property owners need to be mindful of the safety of their tenants and others on their properties. In a recent opinion published by the Illinois Appellate Court, the court found that the owner of residential apartments, its apartment management company and a third-party maintenance person were not responsible to a tenant’s care provider who slipped and fell while taking out a garbage bag on the tenant’s back staircase during the first snowfall of the season.
The injured care provider argued that all the defendants had a duty to remove snow and ice from the staircase because they had earlier voluntarily assumed that duty by clearing snow and because the property management agreement and the property maintenance agreement both provided for snow removal. In particular, the maintenance agreement provided that the maintenance person would keep the sidewalks free of ice and snow. At his deposition, the maintenance person testified it was his understanding the term "sidewalks" in the maintenance agreement included the front and rear staircases.
When ruling on the care provider’s injury claim, the trial court determined that none of the defendants had any duty to the injured care provider to remove the ice and snow from the staircase. The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s ruling.
The appellate court noted that while there is no common-law duty to remove natural accumulations of snow or ice, there are exceptions to the general rule where a defendant previously voluntarily removed snow and ice from the premises and where the defendant had a contractual duty to remove snow and ice from the premises. Here, however, the court ruled there was no continuing duty for a volunteer to remove snow and ice every time snow naturally accumulated on the premises. It reasoned there is a distinction between voluntarily assuming a duty and performing it negligently and not performing a task that had previously been voluntarily undertaken. It would be unreasonable to impose a continuing duty on a person who previously voluntarily undertook the task of clearing the snow and ice every time it snowed in the future.
Moreover, the court reasoned, the existing icy conditions were not hidden. The injured care provider observed such conditions while at the top of the stairs, and she threw the garbage bag over the railing before traversing down the stairs using her free hand to grasp the handrail because she was afraid of falling.
While a landowner that contractually obligates itself to a tenant to remove snow and ice may be held liable to a third party for its failure to remove the accumulation, the court agreed with the landowner’s argument here, that it did not have a duty to remove snow merely because it contracted with others to do so. None of such contracts obligated the landowner or its snow removal contractor to remove the snow and ice from the staircase for the benefit of third parties. The duty of a snow removal contractor who removes snow is to refrain from negligently doing so by creating or aggravating an unnatural accumulation of ice or snow when doing so. Finally, the snow removal contract provided for the removal of snow and ice from sidewalks. The term "sidewalks" does not include staircases.
Accordingly, the Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s decision in favor of the defendants.
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