On July 30, 2026, a divided New Jersey Supreme Court held that ordinary snow and ice removal performed while a storm is still falling is not an “unusual circumstance” that strips a commercial landowner of the ongoing storm rule. The Court vacated a $1,127,941 jury verdict, which had grown to roughly $1.33 million with interest, and ordered the complaint dismissed. Gallardo resolves a question that has driven the value of New Jersey winter premises claims since the ongoing storm rule was adopted five years ago.
Background
On January 3, 2015, a wintry mix of snow, sleet, and rain began falling on a Walmart parking lot in Union Township at about 11:30 a.m. and continued into the afternoon. Between 12:35 p.m. and 1:15 p.m., Walmart's snow contractor spread salt across the lot and walkways. He did not plow, because accumulation was roughly a tenth of an inch. At about 1:30 p.m., a customer walking in from her car slipped on slush and was injured, sustaining spinal injuries that formed the core of her damages case.
Her theory was not that Walmart ignored the storm. It was that Walmart made conditions worse by salting: her liability expert testified that because the lot had never been pretreated, salt applied to fresh precipitation melted it into water that refroze as black ice. The jury agreed and returned a verdict of $1,127,941, after eleven years of litigation that included two summary judgment motions, a five-day trial, and two rounds of appellate review.
The Rule and the Loophole
Under Pareja v. Princeton International Properties, 246 N.J. 546 (2021), a commercial landowner has no duty to clear snow or ice while a storm is ongoing; the duty attaches a reasonable time after the storm ends. Pareja carved out an exception for “unusual circumstances,” including conduct by the owner that increases the risk to pedestrians. That exception became the pressure point. If any imperfect mid-storm effort could qualify, then every service ticket showing salting during a storm, paired with an expert willing to say the treatment backfired, was enough to defeat summary judgment and put the case in front of a jury.
The Decision
By a 4-3 vote, the Court closed that path. Routine snow removal during a storm, salting, shoveling, or spreading de-icer, is not an unusual circumstance, even if performed imperfectly, even absent pretreatment, and even where an expert opines that it worsened conditions. The rationale was practical: if trying and falling short creates liability while doing nothing does not, owners and contractors will simply wait out the storm, and no one is safer for it. The majority applied the rule to a private parking lot, over a dissent by three justices who would have confined it to public sidewalks and who wrote that the majority departed from settled tort principles. Illustrating what does remain unusual, the Court pointed to an out-of-state case in which a business moved a customer's car to a distant lot mid-storm and directed her to walk across accumulating ice to retrieve it. Steering a person into a hazard is unusual; treating a lot and missing a patch is not.
What It Means for New Jersey Cases
Two points matter most. Whether circumstances are unusual is a question of law for the court, not a jury question, which restores summary judgment as a realistic exit in cases that previously survived on an expert report alone; the Court granted judgment here even though a jury had already returned a verdict. And the value of a large category of pending claims has shifted, because any winter premises file in which the landowner or its vendor worked during the storm was priced on the assumption that the activity itself defeated the defense. That assumption no longer holds, and both sides should expect settlement posture on those files to move.
Three theories survive intact and will carry more weight going forward. A hazard predating the storm, old ice, refreeze from a snow pile, or a drainage condition, falls outside the rule entirely. When a storm actually ended, and whether cleanup followed within a reasonable time, remain jury questions, and storms with lulls or changeovers make those questions genuinely contested. And conduct that channels people into danger still supports liability. The Court also expressly reserved the question of a snow removal contractor's exposure; Gallardo protects landowners, and a claim or tender directed at a contractor is a different analysis.
How We Put It to Work
The decision moves the decisive evidence to the front of these cases, so we secure certified hourly weather data and the vendor's timestamped service records at the earliest opportunity and build the storm timeline before discovery expands. For owner and operator clients, our counsel is to keep treating during storms and to document it, arrival times, materials, areas covered, and post-storm photographs, since the surviving exposure runs to pre-existing conditions and post-storm delay rather than to mid-storm effort. For anyone evaluating a New Jersey winter premises claim on either side, Gallardo warrants a fresh look at liability theories, case value, and reserves set under the prior understanding of the rule.
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Sanchez Maselli Trial Attorneys.