Mary Lowney v. Canteen Realty, LLC

Syllabus

In this negligence action arising from a slip and fall on an icy sidewalk, the plaintiff, Mary Lowney, appealed from the grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants, The Old Canteen, Inc. and Canteen Realty, LLC, finding that the defendants owed no duty to the plaintiff to clear the public sidewalk abutting the restaurant of snow and ice. The Supreme Court reiterated its holding in Martin v. Altman, 568 A.2d 1031 (R.I. 1990), that an abutting owner of real estate has no duty to pedestrians to remove ice and snow or otherwise keep the abutting sidewalk in good condition and that the city ordinance requiring an abutting owner to clear the adjacent sidewalk of snow and ice creates a duty only to the municipality at large and not to individual passersby. Relying on well-settled precedent, the Supreme Court further held that that voluntary but insufficient attempts by a landowner to clear ice and snow from the public sidewalk abutting the owner's property do not give rise to a duty of care to an individual passerby. Lastly, the Supreme Court held that the record was devoid of evidence to suggest that the defendants' efforts to clear the sidewalk on that day made the sidewalk more dangerous than it would have been had they done nothing at all. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.