MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Several downtown businesses spent Tuesday clearing the ice from the February Freeze from their sidewalks.
“Got to keep your customers safe and your staff safe. So, we’ve already, actually, we started out back. We had some guys out here yesterday,” Beale Street Management LLC General Manager Jeff Goss said.
He was helping clear the ice from the sidewalk Tuesday.
City code says “all sidewalks shall be kept free from ice or snow; provided, however, that tightly adhering ice may be sprinkled with sawdust, ashes or sand, so as to make the uses of the sidewalk by pedestrians safe.”
Personal injury attorney Gene Laurenzi has dealt with some premises liability cases. He said clearing sidewalks is the responsibility of the business or homeowner, whose property is adjacent to it. He said there’s a greater expectation for businesses to clear ice and snow.
“It’s certainly reasonable to believe that if you’re coming in, I’ve got to give you a safe passage, and I think that’s pretty common sense, and that’s the law,” Laurenzi said.
WREG asked Laurenzi about liability when it comes to falling on icy sidewalks. He said the law generally follows a reasonableness standard, meaning it takes a lot of things into account.
For example, a property owner must have some kind of notice that an ice storm was happening and make a concerted effort to clear it. Also, a person could be partially accountable for his/her own fall if he/she sprints down an icy sidewalk carelessly.
WREG spoke with Memphis tourists who were relieved to see crews tackling the slick sidewalks.
“I thought it was snow, and I was walking very, very carefully. And they said that’s salt. I went, ‘Oh, okay! We’re not used to snow where we come from,” Texas tourist Dora Trevino said.
