Federal Court Finds Apartment Owners’ Snow Removal Efforts Reasonable as a Matter of Law
Sutton | Booker | P.C. attorney Karlee I. Janigian obtained partial summary judgment for an apartment complex. The United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed with prejudice the plaintiff’s Colorado Premises Liability Act (“CPLA”) claim arising from a January 25, 2022, slip-and-fall incident during an active snowstorm.
The Claim
The plaintiff alleged that she slipped and fell while walking down a driveway at her apartment complex after taking her daughter to a nearby school bus stop. At the time of the fall, snow was still coming down. The undisputed weather evidence through a retained meteorologist showed that snowfall continued through the morning, with approximately 1.5 inches falling during the hour before the incident and approximately 2.1 inches accumulated by the time of the fall.
The plaintiff contended that the property owners should have deployed more maintenance staff, expanded the snow removal contractor’s responsibilities, or prioritized the route she used. The defense moved for summary judgment on the ground that the evidence could not support a finding that the apartment complex had unreasonably failed to exercise reasonable care under the CPLA.
The Defense and the Court’s Ruling
The defense developed a record showing that three onsite maintenance employees were assigned to snow and ice removal, a maintenance employee was actively clearing snow before the fall, and the property had an outside snow removal contract with a two-inch service trigger consistent with industry practice. Expert testimony further explained that crews ordinarily require time to mobilize after a trigger depth is reached and that areas cleared during an ongoing storm can quickly become snow-covered again.
Judge Cyrus Y. Chung agreed that the defendants’ actions were reasonable as a matter of law. The court emphasized that the plaintiff’s own testimony confirmed both the ongoing snowfall and the active snow removal work she observed. The court also found that the Town of Parker ordinance that allowed 48 hours after snowfall ceased to clear snow and ice supported rather than undermined the defense position because snow was still falling when the incident occurred.
Although the plaintiff proposed additional measures the defendants could have taken, the court held that she offered no evidence or legal authority showing that those measures defined the threshold of reasonable care. In the court’s words, such “Monday morning quarterbacking” did not rebut the defense expert’s testimony or create a genuine dispute for trial. The court therefore granted the motion on the CPLA claim and ordered that the claim be dismissed with prejudice at the conclusion of the case.
The decision illustrates that Colorado’s premises liability framework requires reasonable care under the circumstances. Under the CPLA, a plaintiff cannot avoid summary judgment by identifying additional precautions in the abstract. The plaintiff must produce evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the measures taken were unreasonable under the conditions that existed at the time.
