Plaintiff Alejandra Padilla allegedly tripped, fell, and suffered injuries on the sidewalk that abutted the vacant commercial lot in Camden owned by the defendants Young Il An and Myo Soon An. This property had been purchased more than 25 years previously but no building was ever constructed. The issue in Padilla v. Il An, 2024 N.J. LEXIS 575 (June 13, 2024) before the Supreme Court was whether the owner of a vacant commercial lot had a common law duty to maintain the abutting public sidewalk in reasonably good condition.
On September 11, 2019, plaintiff allegedly was injured while walking on the public sidewalk abutting the vacant commercial lot located on Westfield Avenue in Camden, New Jersey that was owned by the defendants. According to her deposition, plaintiff suffered several injuries from the fall, including a broken foot and injured arm, and underwent surgery for her injuries. She claims to suffer continuing symptoms, including migraines, pain, and memory loss.
The lot abutting this public sidewalk had been owned by the defendants 27 years before plaintiff’s fall. According to defendant Young Il An, they bought the lot intending to construct a building there but due to economic conditions, they gave up that plan. They also did not purchase liability insurance to cover the lot because, according to the defendant, insurance companies did not really want to insure it. After the fall, the defendants did have the sidewalk abutting the subject lot repaired.
Plaintiff sued defendants based upon their alleged negligence in failing to reasonably maintain the sidewalk abutting the subject lot. At the trial court level, the defendants were successful in obtaining a summary judgment dismissal. The trial court held that the defendants did not owe a duty of care to plaintiff, relying on the Appellate Division’s decision in Abraham v. Gupta. In the Abraham case, the Appellate Division held that “the liability imposed on commercial property owners to reasonably maintain abutting sidewalks does not apply to sidewalks abutting vacant lots.” The trial court’s rationale was that the defendants did not have a duty to maintain the sidewalk because it abutted a vacant lot that was not generating any income.
This summary judgment dismissal in the Padilla case was appealed to the Appellate Division, which affirmed the trial court’s judgment. The Appellate Division ruled that Abraham remained good law as applied to the subject lot and declined to impose any duty upon the defendant vacant lot property owner to maintain the abutting sidewalk in a safe condition.
Plaintiff filed a petition for certification on the issue of whether owners of vacant commercial lots owe a duty of care to pedestrians to reasonably maintain the sidewalks abutting those lots. The New Jersey Supreme Court granted the plaintiff’s petition, bringing this issue before the Supreme Court.
Plaintiff urged the Supreme Court to reverse the Appellate Division’s decision, contending that the Abraham case should be reversed. Plaintiff contended that the Stewart v. 104 Wallace Street, Inc. case which imposed a duty of care upon commercial properties, as opposed to residential properties, to maintain the abutting public sidewalk, did not distinguish among types of commercial properties or consider whether those properties had active businesses on them. Plaintiff further argued that imposing a duty of care would be fair because the subject lot was capable of generating income.
The Supreme Court noted that in the four decades since the Stewart case, the New Jersey courts “have adhered to the rule imposing liability on commercial landowners.” The issue in this case was whether that liability should be extended to commercial landowners of vacant lots. The Court adopted a bright-line test, concluding that a duty should be imposed on owners of vacant commercial lots to maintain the abutting sidewalks in reasonably good condition.
The Court noted that there would be “something profoundly unfair about commercial property owners purchasing vacant lots and having no responsibility whatsoever from maintaining the area where the general public traverses.” Hence, the Court ruled that all commercial landowners, including owners of vacant commercial lots “must maintain the public sidewalks abutting their property in reasonably good condition and can be held liable to pedestrians injured as a result of their negligent failure to do so.”
The Court explained that once “an individual or an entity purchases a lot in a commercially zoned area, meaning the only use to which that land can be put as commercial, the purchaser has begun a commercial endeavor and intends to make money.” The Supreme Court rejected any type of profitability test to determine whether a duty should be imposed upon a commercial landowner, finding that profitability would be a difficult task to determine. Thus, it found that a bright-line rule that commercial property owners owe a duty “is the most workable rule to protect the general public and ensure consistency in our courts.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Division’s decision, which had affirmed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment to the defendant property owners and remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.
