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On March 10, 2019, I spoke to the Men’s Group at Temple Shir Shalom. Being wintertime, I titled the presentation, “Slip and Fall?: Your Rights and Obligations In the Wintertime”. I created a power point presentation to cover the relevant legal issues in these types of cases. The power point helped to form an informative and well-received talk. I explained the legal issues that form the basis for a claim against a landowner and even a snow plow company. We talked about the essential considerations to establish the concept of liability: foreseeability, notice, burden to treat the condition, the risk of injury, comparative fault, and “storm in progress”. Foreseeability relates to reasonably anticipating a problem. Notice relates to the length of time the condition exists, or the owner’s knowledge that the condition exists.

Comparative fault is always relevant. For example, if the condition is open and obvious we talked about whether blame can be shared. I explained that ongoing storms provide an excuse to delay treatment for a reasonable amount of time after bad weather stops. I used entertaining videos, scene photographs, legal case quotes, cartoon images, and medical illustrations to support the presentation. I answered questions to real life situations putting these concepts into perspective. Did you know that the Amherst town ordinance puts responsibility to maintain sidewalks fronting property on the landowner? We covered the issues from both points of view: the property owner and the injured claimant. As favors for coming, I gave the attendees Small Law firm pens and spiral notebooks. All in all, everyone was able to walk away with some important and useful pieces of information – just in case!

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