HARRISBURG – A three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania has upheld a trial court verdict that awarded $900,000 to a FedEx driver who was injured while making deliveries for work in Bethlehem.
Superior Court judges Anne E. Lazarus, Deborah A. Kunselman and Daniel D. McCaffery issued the decision on June 3, with Kunselman authoring the opinion on behalf of the court.
On the morning of Feb. 12, 2015, plaintiff Abigail Figueroa, a delivery driver for Fed-Ex, brought a parcel to defendant Eileen Meitzner’s home in Bethlehem. Figueroa had already made several other deliveries that morning and though it had snowed on and off for the prior few days, including that very morning, Figueroa had safely entered and exited all the other properties along her route without slipping.
“A stretch of Meitzner’s sidewalk passed under a small grove of pines, where winter’s ice regularly accumulates. On that day and at that spot, winter’s wrath formed a smooth sheet of ice, concealed beneath a light blanket of freshly fallen snow. Not suspecting this hidden danger, Figueroa stepped upon this spot, lost her footing, fell, and suffered injuries. She sued Meitzner for various damages,” Kunselman stated.
At the end of Figueroa’s case-in-chief, Meitzner moved for compulsory nonsuit and the trial court denied that request. The jury held Meitzner 60 percent liable for Figueroa’s fall, and Figueroa herself 40 percent liable.
As a result, the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas jury awarded $1.5 million in damages, which the trial court molded to a $900,000 judgment in favor of Figueroa.
In post-trial motions, Meitzner alleged that she was entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), because in her view, there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that she was 60 percent negligent – and Meitzner further filed a motion to lessen the jury award.
The trial court denied those requests, and this led Meitzner to pursue relief in the Superior Court.
Meitzner had originally sought a new trial on various grounds, but as the issue of the trial court erroneously relying on upon evidence produced during Meitzner’s side of the case was not contained in her Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1925(b) statement of appeal, the Superior Court waived it from consideration.
Further on appeal, Meitzner claims that the trial court erred, as a matter of law, when it refused to grant her a compulsory nonsuit at the close of Figueroa’s case-in-chief. Given that general slippery conditions prevailed, Meitzner asserted that Pennsylvania’s common-law doctrine of hills and ridges was in effect, and that Ms. Figueroa’s testimony regarding the flatness and smoothness of the ice in question disproves the presence of hills and ridges, as matter of law.
“Meitzner’s argument presumes application of the hills-and-ridges doctrine in this case. The hills-and-ridges doctrine is Pennsylvania’s extension of Section 342 of The Second Restatement of Torts to the wintry conditions that come with living in the Northeastern United States,” Kunselman said.
“Therefore, unless slippery conditions generally existed in the town of Bethlehem on the date she fell, as a matter of law, we need not consider whether Figueroa offered sufficient evidence to satisfy the doctrine of hills and ridges. Absent general slipperiness, the doctrine does not apply.”
Meitzner had argued that generally slippery conditions were present at the time of Figueroa’s fall and that, because hills and ridges were not present at the location of the fall, the trial court should have concluded as a matter of law that Meitzner was not liable to Figueroa.
However, the trial court judge found that the question of whether general slippery conditions prevailed in the community, and, if so, the question of whether hills and ridges were present at the location of the fall, were questions of fact to be resolved by the jury.
Kunselman agreed with the trial court’s analysis of Figueroa’s testimony and the denial of the motion for compulsory nonsuit, adding the testimony regarding “the non-slippery condition of Meitzner’s driveway and the other properties she visited that morning created a factual question as to the general slipperiness of Bethlehem on the date and time when Ms. Figueroa fell.”
Meitzner’s second issue on appeal presumed “it was undisputed that general slippery conditions prevailed at the time of Figueroa’s slip and fall”, but according to Kunselman, Figueroa’s testimony suggests otherwise.
“Thus, the jury had the right and authority to decide whether non-slippery conditions generally existed in Bethlehem on the morning in question, such that the slippery patch of ice on the Meitzners’ sidewalk was the unreasonable and, therefore, unlawful exception,” Kunselman said.
“Ultimately the jury credited Figueroa’s testimony, found that the hills and ridges doctrine did not apply, and held Meitzner 60 percent responsible for Figueroa’s fall.”
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 2580 EDA 2019
Northampton County Court of Common Pleas case C-48-CV-2017-01004
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com