Summary Judgment Denied in Parking Lot Slip and Fall Case

In the case of Coolbaugh v. Sonesta Select Allentown Bethlehem Airport, No. 2023-C-1548 (C.P. Leh. Co. Nov. 13, 2024 Reichley, J.), the court denied a Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment in a case involving an alleged slip and fall in the Defendants’ parking lot.

In denying the motion, the court held that there were genuine issues of material fact regarding the application of the hills and ridges doctrine where a de-icing of the parking lot had occurred approximately twenty-four (24) hours before the Plaintiff’s accident.

According to the record before the court, there was evidence that the Plaintiff fell when temperatures were around freezing and where it had snowed three or four days earlier. The court noted that, where the evidence also indicated that the parking lot had been de-iced approximately twenty-four (24) hours before the Plaintiff’s accident, there was an issue of fact on whether the alleged accumulation of the ice upon which the Plaintiff had slipped was a natural accumulation or not.

Given these issues of fact, the court denied the Motion for Summary Judgment.

The court also denied the Motion for Summary Judgment on the basis of rejecting the Defendants’ argument that they had delegated the snow and ice removal duties to a third party under a contract. The court stated that the record was silent as to whether the moving Defendants had relinquished possession and control of the parking lot during or after the third party had performed snow removal services.

The court additionally noted that there were factual questions regarding the Defendants’ notice of the parking lot’s condition where snowy and ice conditions had been observed in the lot for days or weeks leading up to the Plaintiff’s accident.

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Source: The Legal Intelligencer Common Pleas Case Alert, www.Law.com (April 30, 2025).

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