Lisa L. Maeyer

In Mangle v. Inspirit Senior Living Dover Aid II Opco LLC, the Delaware Superior Court denied summary judgment to both a property owner and its snow-removal contractor in a slip-and-fall case arising from snowy and icy conditions in a parking lot.  The plaintiff, an outpatient physical therapist working on-site, slipped while walking through a lot covered in snow and alleged that the defendants negligently failed to remediate the condition.

The snow-removal contractor argued that it owed no duty because there was no evidence it performed snow and ice removal prior to the fall. The court found a genuine dispute of fact on that issue, noting that while the plaintiff testified no remediation appeared to have occurred, the contractor produced an invoice showing services performed within a timeframe that included the date of the incident.  This created triable issues regarding whether the contractor performed, or should have performed, services before the fall and whether any such work was done reasonably.

The court also rejected the contractor’s argument that the plaintiff’s claims failed for lack of expert testimony. Relying on Delaware precedent, the court held that expert testimony is not required where the alleged dangerous condition is within the common understanding of a lay juror. The presence of snow and ice—and whether it was reasonably addressed—was deemed the type of condition that a jury could evaluate without expert assistance.

With respect to the property owner, the court declined to grant summary judgment based on the plaintiff’s inability to identify the precise cause of her fall. Although the plaintiff could not say definitively whether she slipped on snow or ice, she testified that the area was snow-covered and slippery and that ice likely existed beneath the snow. The court held that this circumstantial evidence was sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to infer that a hazardous condition caused the fall.

Finally, the court rejected the defendants’ “open and obvious” argument at the summary judgment stage. Because the plaintiff alleged not only a failure to warn, but also a failure to remediate, the court found that the obviousness of the condition went to comparative fault rather than serving as a complete bar to recovery. Accordingly, the case was allowed to proceed to the jury on all issues.