In Rowe v. Mazel Thirty, LLC, et. al., decided on October 29, 2010, the Appellate Division declined the opportunity to address the issue of the duty owed to a police officer by a property owner in terms of legal status. The facts of Rowe reveal that on December 23, 2005, the plaintiff, an East Orange police officer, injured himself when the masonry and brick steps that led to the basement of defendants’ building crumbled and gave way. Pursuant to the city’s “safe block” initiative, the officer’s responsibilities included “checking vacant apartment buildings and houses on the street.” Importantly, plaintiff visited defendants’ building on a prior occasion. During that prior occasion, the plaintiff “wrote the property up for some broken windows” and noted that the building was vacant at the time and construction was ongoing. On the date of the accident, the plaintiff was able to observe the stairs of the defendant’s building and admitted that the stairs appeared to be in the same condition as when he had visited the premises on the prior occasion.

At the close of discovery, defendant moved for summary judgment arguing that they had no “reasonable expectation” that the plaintiff, in his role as a police officer, would “be on the property.” In granting summary judgment, the trial court agreed with defendants’ reliance on Cella v. Industrial Props., 232 N.J. Super. 232 (App. Div. 1989), which held that plaintiff was a licensee and the duty owed to the plaintiff was simply to refrain from injurious conduct or warn of latent defects which the plaintiff would not have been aware. Moreover, the trial judge concluded that the defect was obvious and that the plaintiff knew of the condition of the staircase prior to the accident.

The Appellate Division affirmed Summary Judgement and the trial court’s determination of the duty owed to the plaintiff, and did not comment on the legal status of the plaintiff. Instead, in deciding that the defendants did not owe any duty to the plaintiff, the Appellate Division purely based it opinion upon the fact that the plaintiff was aware of the dangerous condition of the property before he descended the stairs. As a result, plaintiff’s prior knowledge of the obviously dangerous condition relieved defendants of potential liability.

The Rowe decision evidences the trend of the New Jersey Courts with respect to premises liability law. Plaintiffs will no longer be classified into the categories of invitee, licensee, or trespasser. Today, insurance carriers and their attorneys must be cognizant of the numerous factors that determine a client’s duty of care. Moreover, the defense must recognize that other avenues of disputing liability are available, such as notice on the part of the Plaintiff, during the course of pre-trial discovery. A close examination of other considerations and factors may provide the defense with ammunition to disclaim liability.