Court Finds No Liability Against Property Owners Assocation Relative to Location of Bus Stop

Judge David J. Williamson of the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas recently addressed the liability of homeowners associations in the case of Essington v. Monroe Co. Transit Auth., No. 5117-CV-2020 (C.P. Monroe Co. Aug. 15, 2022).

In Essington, the plaintiff’s decedent was fatally injured when he was hit by an oncoming car at night after exiting a bus at a bus stop that was located just outside of the residential gated community known as the Pocono Country Place Property Owners Association. 

The plaintiff asserted that the property owners association was negligent for failing to ensure that the bus stop located outside of their gated community was safe and/or for not allowing the buses to come inside the gated community to drop off passengers.

The court granted summary judgment in favor of the property owners association after finding that the property owners association had no control over the bus company’s selection and location of its bus stops and that, therefore, the property owners association owed no duty to the plaintiff’s decedent in this regard. 

The court additionally confirmed that there was no evidence in the record that the property owners association encouraged or endorsed its residents to use the bus system, let alone to use it at any particular stop.

Anyone wishing to review this decision may click this LINK.

Source:  "Digest of Recent Decisions. Pennsylvania Law Weekly (Oct. 3, 2022).

Source of image:  Photo by Darren Viollet on www.pexels.com.