Winter officially starts on Dec. 21, but many areas of the country have already dealt with several feet of snow and ice.
This kind weather can be especially troublesome for landlords. When those areas aren’t cleared well, the landlord may face claims from tenants who fall on slippery sidewalks.
For example, there was once a woman who worked in a building in Chicago that had stairs leading to its entrance. One winter morning on her way to work, the woman found that the stairway, normally wide enough to accommodate three people walking abreast, had only been shoveled in the center of the stairs, creating a path about the width of a shovel. The stairs also contained patches of impacted snow on the shoveled portions caused by other people walking on the stairs. Toward the sides of the stairway, in the unshoveled portions, the snow was about a foot deep. The woman slipped on the top step of the stairway, fell down the remaining steps and was injured.
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Rosalie Donlon
Rosalie Donlon is the editor in chief of ALM's insurance and tax publications, including NU Property & Casualty magazine and NU PropertyCasualty360.com. You can contact her at [email protected].
