Where the Sidewalk Ends
There are a lot of claims involving falls on sidewalks.
One of the first questions is who should be responsible for the sidewalk where the fall happened.
Who is Responsible for the Sidewalk?
The usual suspects are the municipality and the adjoining landowner.
For a public sidewalk, the city or other governmental entity has a nondelegable tort duty to exercise ordinary care in the design, construction, maintenance, and repair of the sidewalk so that it is reasonably safe for ordinary travel. That is essentially the rule stated in Washington Pattern Instruction 140.01.
The Washington Supreme Court explained:
Cities are legally responsible for the physical condition of their public sidewalks, while an abutting landowner ordinarily is not liable merely because the defective sidewalk happens to be in front of the owner’s property.
Rivett v. City of Tacoma, 123 Wn.2d 573, 579, 870 P.2d 299 (1994).
That's true even if there's an ordinance that says that the adjacent property owner must maintain or repair the sidewalk.
But this idea that the municipality is primarily responsible doesn't mean that it's always responsible or is the only one responsible.
Abutting owners may have liability if the owner “causes or contributes to the condition” that makes the sidewalk dangerous. For example, maintaining a tree that grows under the sidewalk and causes it to heave up (or create a stub-toe) is something that can make an abutting owner liable.
There is also the special-use doctrine. If the owner uses the public sidewalk for the owner’s own special purposes, the owner has a corresponding duty to exercise reasonable care so that the special use does not create an unsafe condition for ordinary pedestrian use.
So the big questions are:
Who owns the sidewalk?
Who controls it?
Who created the defect?
Did something on the adjacent property cause it?
Did the owner make a special use of the sidewalk?
What does the local municipal code require?
The answers can result in liability against the municipality, the property owner, or potentially both.
The best action plan in most cases is to submit claims to both the abutting landowner and also the municipality.
What makes a sidewalk “unreasonably dangerous” for pedestrians?
There aren’t a lot of bright-line rules. The question is pretty fact-specific.
When someone trips on a raised or uneven sidewalk slab, one big issue is going to be the height differential.
I think sometimes the small defects are more dangerous than the big ones because people are less likely to notice them. Let’s say there’s a root running under a section of the sidewalk and it lifts it up 3/4”. People aren’t going see and respond to that the same way they would if it was 3” or 4” higher than the section next to it.
Many municipalities have guidelines for when the sidewalk needs to be repaired. They specify, e.g., that if the height differential between two sections is between 1/2” and 1” the differential should be ground out and if the differential is more than 1” then that section of sidewalk should be re-poured. At a minimum, the defect should be marked with paint while repairs are pending.
Is there a Strict Liability Standard?
Municipalities and abutting property owners aren’t liable for every defect. One of the constraints on liability is "notice."
They have to know (or have the opportunity to know) about a defect before they’re responsible for fixing it (and liable if someone falls and gets hurt on it).
Uplifts caused by roots don't happen instantaneously. They happen at a glacial pace. Both municipalities and abutting property owners have ample opportunity, before someone gets hurt, to make corrections.
And notice is implied where either the municipality or the abutting property owner actually creates the hazard.
Why we like these Cases
Trip and fall cases are very geometric. The geometry isn't complex. It's easily understood by jurors. That makes it a lot easier to focus the case on how injuries have affected quality of life instead of arguing about whether defendants should be held responsible.