Facts
- Defendants owned a commercial building abutting a public sidewalk in Boston.
- The roof was constructed so that snow and ice naturally accumulated on its sloping surface and then slid or fell toward the street.
- This pattern was recurring and known: in snowy weather, accumulations would predictably leave the roof and fall onto the sidewalk unless preventive measures were taken.
- Plaintiff, a pedestrian lawfully using the sidewalk, was struck and injured by falling snow and ice from the roof.
- Plaintiff claimed defendants negligently failed to alter the structure or take reasonable precautions (e.g., barriers or other protections) to guard travelers from the recurring hazard.
- Defendants argued the incident resulted from ordinary winter conditions and that pedestrians assumed the ordinary risks of walking past buildings during snow and ice.
Issues
- Whether owners of a building abutting a public way owe a duty to travelers to prevent injury from snow and ice that foreseeably fall from the building due to its roof’s construction and permanent arrangement.
- Whether liability may attach when the danger is tied to an enduring, artificial structural condition rather than a transient, purely weather-created condition.
- Whether a pedestrian using a public sidewalk is barred from recovery on the theory that she assumes the risk of falling snow and ice in winter.
- Whether the trial judge’s jury instructions correctly stated the owners’ duty and the basis for liability.
Decision
- The Supreme Judicial Court overruled the defendants’ exceptions and left the plaintiff’s verdict intact.
- The court held that a property owner may be liable where the building’s construction and permanent arrangement create a constant, foreseeable risk of snow and ice falling onto a public sidewalk and the owner fails to use reasonable care to prevent harm.
- The court treated the hazard as arising from the building’s structural configuration, not merely from a natural accumulation of snow and ice.
- The court rejected a broad rule that pedestrians, by using public sidewalks in winter, assume the risk of injury from an unreasonably dangerous, avoidable condition created by an abutter.
Legal Principles
- Owners of property abutting a public way must exercise reasonable care not to maintain their premises in a condition that foreseeably and unreasonably endangers lawful travelers on the way.
- A recurring danger produced by the construction or permanent arrangement of a building (such as a roof that predictably sheds snow and ice onto a sidewalk) may support negligence liability if reasonable precautions are not taken.
- The characterization of a hazard as involving snow and ice does not preclude liability when the risk is created or materially increased by an artificial, enduring structural condition.
- Use of a public way does not, by itself, constitute consent to risks created by an abutter’s negligent maintenance of a foreseeably dangerous structure.
Conclusion
The court sustained liability where the defendants’ roof design predictably caused snow and ice to fall onto an adjacent public sidewalk and the defendants failed to take reasonable protective measures, rejecting the view that pedestrians automatically assume such risks when traveling in winter.