Business Not Liable for Slip and Fall on Abutting Icy Sidewalk/”Special Use” Doctrine Explained

The Fourth Department determined the defendant funeral home could not be held liable for the plaintiff’s fall on an icy sidewalk in front of the home.  There was no statute or ordinance imposing liability on the abutting landowner (as opposed to the municipality), the funeral home did not derive a special use from the sidewalk, and the funeral home did not create or exacerbate the dangerous condition. In explaining the “special use” doctrine, the court wrote:

Under the special use doctrine, a landowner whose property abuts a public sidewalk may be liable for injuries that are caused by a defect in the sidewalk when the municipality has given the landowner permission to “interfere with a street solely for private use and convenience in no way connected with the public use” and the landowner fails to maintain the sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition … .  “A special use is typically characterized by the installation of some object in the sidewalk or street or some variance in the construction thereof” … . Here, defendants established that the sidewalk was unencumbered by the installation of any objects or by other variances in construction, and plaintiff submitted no evidence that “the sidewalk was constructed in a special manner for the benefit of the abutting owner or occupier”… . Panzica v Fantauzzi…, 863, 4th Dept 9-27-13