Maryland: Knowledge of Black Ice Conditions Creates Assumption of Risk

On October 1, 2010, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland filed the opinion in the case of Mary Thomas v. Panco Management of Maryland, LLC, et al.  This is a slip and fall case in which the Court Special Appeals affirmed the trial court’s grant of judgment for the Defendants at the close of the Plaintiff’s case.  The Plaintiff fell on “black ice” on a sidewalk in front of her building at approximately 8:00 p.m.  At the time of the accident, the Plaintiff knew: 1) that on the date of the accident there was ice on the sidewalks when she left for work at 8:30 a.m., 2) ice was also present on the parking lot at 8:30 a.m., which caused her to hold her car for support, 3) that when the snow melted it would make the sidewalks wet, 4) that at approximately 6:00 p.m. the weather was getting colder, 5) that at 8:00 p.m. (approximately) the temperature was falling when she left her apartment to pick up her granddaughter, and 6) that “as a consequence of the snow melting and running onto the sidewalk, . . . if temperatures fell below freezing, icy conditions could develop.”  On these facts, the Court held that the Plaintiff “had at the time of her fall, knowledge of the risk that she might be stepping down upon ice and that a reasonable person in her position would have appreciated the danger of that action.”  The Court further held:

In this case, although Thomas did not have an alternative safe path to her car, she did have a safe alternative course of action.  One alternative course of action was to call the  maintenance department at her apartment complex and ask them to put down salt or some other substance that would melt the ice.  Such an alternative course of action would not have been a waste of time because, according the uncontroverted testimony of Ms. Gillete, the apartment complex was “generally well maintained” and “the maintenance staff [was] generally responsive to calls for maintenance.”  Alternatively, as [the trial judge] suggested, she could have refused to take her granddaughter to the church because, objectively speaking, she knew that the sidewalk might be icy.

Under the circumstances of this case, we hold that Thomas’s assumption of the risk of slipping on ice was volitional.

This case makes clear that a plaintiff can be held to have voluntarily assumed the risk of slipping on ice or snow even if the plaintiff has no alternative safe route to reach his or her destination, so long as the plaintiff has available some alternate safe course of action.