Now that winter is (with any luck) finally coming to an end, hopefully so will the difficulties of navigating snowy or icy parking lots. In our litigious society, a common type of civil lawsuit is the “slip and fall” case, where someone falls and attempts to collect damages from the parking lot owner or the plow company. Maryland’s highest court last week weighed in again on the law surrounding such claims, reaffirming that one who attempts to cross any obviously uncleared lot does so at her peril.
In Morgan State University v. Walker, the Court of Appeals addressed a civil suit by a woman who fell and fractured her leg in the parking lot outside her daughter’s college residence. According to the Courts’ opinion, Ms. Walker had driven to the campus about a week after a blizzard so she could deliver some money to her daughter. She testified that when she got to the parking lot she noticed that it had not been cleared. She was able to make it into the building by holding on to other cars for support. Unfortunately, on her way back to her car she slipped and fell.
Walker filed suit against the University, claiming that it was negligent (did not use reasonable care) in clearing the parking lot. The University raised the defense of assumption of risk, which under Maryland law is a complete bar to recovery of damages in such a case. As the Court of Appeals explained, the law has long held that the defense of assumption of risk requires that the defense prove 1) the plaintiff had knowledge of the risk, 2) appreciated the risk, and 3)voluntarily chose to confront the risk. If those factors exist, the law deems the plaintiff to have abandoned the right to complain about being injured by that risk.
The trial judge granted judgment for the University as a matter of law before trial on assumption of risk. The intermediate appellate court reversed, indicating that it was for the jury to decide whether Walker’s running of the risk was truly voluntary. The Court of Appeals decided that the trial court was right, that a reasonable person in Walker’s shoes engaged in a voluntary running of the risk which bars recovery.
The Court explained that assumption of risk is assessed using an objective standard. That is, there are certain risks that adults of normal intelligence must be deemed to understand, such as that ice is slippery and can cause you to fall. Indeed, Walker admitted in her suit that she was aware the ice was slippery and was attempting to be careful in negotiating the parking lot. It discussed earlier cases that included the claim of a delivery person, who felt she had to try to make a delivery over a slippery sidewalk because she felt her boss wanted her to. The subjective belief of such a person, the Court said, is not the test since she still has the option not to run the risk.
The courts have said that in the ordinary case, whether the decision to run the risk was truly voluntary is an issue for the jury. However, where the facts are undisputed that the slippery conditions were readily apparent, that the plaintiff had the option not to run the risk, but chose to do so anyway, the issue is one for the judge to decide. Before any of us take our chances in crossing that slippery parking lot, we need to be aware that we may have given up the right to sue if we don’t make it successfully.