The Court granted our motion for summary judgment on behalf of our nursing home client in a slip-and-fall case where a visitor cut through snow-covered landscaping during a snowstorm instead of using an entrance walkway.  The plaintiff slipped on a tree root and sustained various injuries including a traumatic brain injury.

Upon completion of discovery, Sheeley LLP moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the facility did not owe plaintiff a duty of care to keep the landscaping in front of the nursing home free of natural features like an exposed tree root, nor did it have an obligation to remove snow and/or salt the landscaped area which ran adjacent to the pedestrian walkway since the alleged tree root was an inherent feature of the land which would have been reasonably anticipated, and thus was not a dangerous condition. We also argued that the defendant was entitled to summary judgment under the storm-in-progress doctrine, because snow/rain was falling during the hours leading up to the accident and the duty to clear snow had not yet commenced.

After oral argument, the court granted the motion on both grounds.  The plaintiff has taken an appeal.