Plaintiff Allan Suarez sued Ridgefield Park for damages resulting from injuries he suffered when he claims to have tripped on an uneven portion of a sidewalk across the street from his home. Ridgefield Park successfully obtained a summary judgment dismissal on the trial court level pursuant to the Tort Claims Act immunities. In Suarez v. Gallagher, 2019 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2003 (App. Div. September 30, 2019), the plaintiff appealed the summary judgment ruling, arguing that he had satisfied the Tort Claims Act requirements so as to be able to pursue the claim against Ridgefield Park.
In the appeal, plaintiff argued that he had satisfied the Act’s notice requirements, that the sidewalk constituted a dangerous condition, and Ridgefield Park’s failure to ameliorate the condition was palpably unreasonable. The Appellate Division rejected all of these arguments. First, the Appellate Division addressed the dangerous condition contention. The Court noted that the sidewalk slabs were alleged to be uneven, with one protruding one and a half inches above the other. The Appellate Division stated that “uneven sidewalk slabs do not necessarily constitute dangerous conditions as defined by the Act.” It pointed out that a defect is not a dangerous condition merely because it exists and that an alleged defect must be more than “minor, trivial or insignificant.” The Court found that a declivity of one or one and a half inches in a sidewalk is a commonplace defect and does not meet the Act’s definition of a dangerous condition.
Second, the Court found that the plaintiff also failed to show that Ridgefield Park had actual or constructive notice of the alleged defect, as required by the Act. The plaintiff had presented no evidence to suggest that Ridgefield Park received any complaints about the sidewalk. Instead, the evidence demonstrated that “neither plaintiff, who lived across the street, nor plaintiff’s neighbor whose property abutted the allegedly defective sidewalk, ever uttered a complaint about the sidewalk.” Further, the Appellate Division rejected the argument that because Ridgefield Park has a shade tree commission and would fix defects when brought to its attention provided a basis for finding it possessed constructive notice of any sidewalk defects that were not brought to its attention.
Thus, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, dismissing the law suit against Ridgefield Park.
Betsy G. Ramos, Esq. is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and Co-Chair of the Litigation Group. She is an experienced litigator with over 25 years’ experience handling diverse matters. Her practice areas include tort defense, insurance coverage, Tort Claims Act and civil rights defense, business litigation, employment litigation, construction litigation, estate litigation and general litigation.
