Plaintiff Akhilesh Parasher was visiting his elderly mother, defendant Maya Etvir Sharma, when he tripped on a three step outdoor staircase leading from her back door. He had been there for Mother’s Day and helped her with some chores and errands. The issue in Parasher v. Sharma, 2026 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1076 (App. Div. May 26, 2026), was whether Plaintiff qualified as a business invitee versus a social guest, for which a lesser degree of care would be owed by the landowner.
Sharma was an elderly woman with dementia and is now deceased. She had lived in this home for over 50 years. After Plaintiff’s father died, he lived in the house for two years. In the year before the accident, Plaintiff visited his mother almost every day and would take her grocery shopping and run errands. While unloading the groceries, he would use the back door. He did not notice any defects in the steps leading up to the back door.
On the day of the accident, Sharma called Plaintiff and asked him to come over on Mother’s Day to have some “family fun.” He did come over and helped her with house cleaning and then took her to the store to buy groceries. They used the back door to carry in the groceries.
When he was leaving that day, he also used the back door. He made it down the first step but fell backwards when he reached the second step. These steps had handrails but only on the highest step and, on one side, the railing was dislodged from its anchor point.
Plaintiff retained a liability expert who concluded that the steps were in a dangerous condition. He opined that the staircase was dangerous because of “the lack of dimensional uniformity, a defective guardrail and handrailing system and the absence [o]f visual clues.”
Plaintiff sued Defendant (his mother Sharma), alleging negligence as to the condition of her property. Following the completion of discovery, Sharma filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court judge granted the motion, dismissing the lawsuit. This appeal ensued.
As part of the trial court’s decision, the judge concluded that Plaintiff was a social guest, not a business invitee. On appeal, Plaintiff made the argument that he was misclassified and because he was conferring “essential household benefits,” he should have been classified as a business invitee, with the higher duty of care imposed upon the Defendant, as the landowner.
The Appellate Division pointed out that the duty of care owed to an injured party is dependent upon their status – whether they are a business invitee, social guest, or trespasser. A business invitee is someone who is “invited on the premises for purposes of the owner that often are commercial or business related.” If a business invitee, the landowner would owe “a duty of reasonable care to guard against any dangerous conditions to his or her property that the owner either knows about or should have discovered.”
However, a lesser degree of care is owed to a social guest or licensee. Such a person would be someone who is on the premises for personal purposes. As a social guest/licensee, the owner would only be liable for that person’s injury if the owner knew or had reason to know of the condition (that caused the injury) and should realize that it involved an unreasonable risk of harm to such licensee and should expect that they would not discover or realize the danger. Further, the owner would not be liable unless the licensee did not know or have reason to know of the condition and the risk involved.
The Appellate Division noted that a person would generally remain as a “social guest,” even if they performed some services beneficial to their host. The rationale is that the main purpose of their visit was social and not to render services. The Court cited to prior case law that the “nature of the relationship should be governed by throughout by that purpose and not by the fact that the guest may during a small portion of the stay assist in preparing food for a meal or perform some other minor chore of benefit to the hostess at the latter’s request.”
Here, Plaintiff came to his mother’s house for a social purpose. He was coming at his mother’s request for “family fun” on Mother’s Day. While Plaintiff did help clean and run errands, the Court found that these actions did not convert his status from a social guest to a business invitee. His social interaction was concurrent with the performance of household chores.
And regardless of his status, the Appellate Division noted that there would be no liability because the hazard posed by the staircase was obvious. As either a social guest or an invitee, there would be no liability to an injured party from a hazard which is apparent or known to the injured party.
The Court noted that the “defects” in the staircase pointed out by Plaintiff’s expert were obvious to Plaintiff. He had lived in the house and visited his mother regularly. Thus, the Appellate Division found that Plaintiff should have been aware of them. Hence, the Court affirmed the trial court’s decision, granting summary judgment as to Defendant Sharma.
