Kate Crouch Secures Favorable Settlement Under Threat of Pending Motion for Summary Judgment on Snow and Ice Case

In a recent case involving the ever-evolving natural accumulation rule, Kate Crouch defended a landscaping company that contracted to remove snow and place salt to remediate ice at the premises where a plaintiff fell, sustaining a serious shoulder fracture with medical specials of $150,000.  Plaintiff gave ample testimony in her deposition that she believed that the snow in the area of her fall was newly fallen and naturally accumulated, and she had no explanation for the origin of the ice that caused her fall.  Kate subsequently moved for summary judgment.

Had our MSJ been filed two years ago, we expect it would have been easily granted.  Our client had no duty relative to Plaintiff, and the natural accumulation rule precluded any action where the icy or snowy conditions were not created or aggravated by our client.  There was no such evidence in this case.  However, the June 2019 case of Mickens v. CPS complicates snow and ice cases today.  Under Mickens, a snow contractor can be held liable for even a natural accumulation, if that contractor has failed to perform its contractual duties within a reasonable timeframe and in a reasonable manner.

Furthermore, where a plaintiff is an intended user of the premises, the Mickens court found that a snow removal contractor may owe a duty of care.  In the instant case, we argued that a snow and ice removal contractor needs to be held to its contract, thus looking past the reasonableness question, which is subjective and best put to a jury.  Our client never agreed to remove ice; it agreed to salt only.   This focus on the contract was an effective distancing technique relative to Mickens; in that case, the snow contractor agreed to remove snow and ice “down to the pavement.”  Under the weight of the summary judgment motion, Kate resolved this case for $10,000 – a small fraction of Plaintiff’s medical specials.