Plaintiff, Michael Mangone, a UPS delivery worker, suffered an injury due to a fall from snow on the driveway of defendant Beverly Beer. Plaintiff sued Beer, claiming negligence. The question in Mangone v. Beer, 2017 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2855 (App. Div. Nov.16, 2017) was whether the defendant breached any duty of care owed to plaintiff.
At the time of the accident, the homeowner Beer was not home. She had requested from UPS a delivery of a package by 10:30 am. It was lightly snowing at the time of the incident and had snowed the previous day. About 2 ½ to 3 ½ inches of snow had accumulated on the ground.
The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant, holding that the homeowner did not breach any duty owed to the plaintiff. The plaintiff appealed this order to the Appellate Division.
The Appellate Division agreed that the plaintiff was a business invitee and was owed “a duty of care to provide him with a reasonably safe means to make his delivery.” But, the Court found that New Jersey law did not impose a legal obligation on a residential property owner to clear a driveway during an ongoing snow storm. Instead, the Court held that a residential owner has “a duty under tort law to remove snow within a reasonable period of time after a snow event.”
Further, the Appellate Division noted that the plaintiff’s liability theory had issues with both proximate causation and comparative fault. UPS drivers are able to decline to attempt deliveries in “foul” weather.
Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint.
