Case Law Summaries

Escalante v. Gross

• Opinion Date: September 12, 2001
• Real Property Law
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SIDEWALKS—A two-family home where one unit is owner-occupied is not a commercial property for the purpose of determining liability for sidewalk injuries.

A pedestrian fell over a raised portion of sidewalk in front of a two family home. The owner lived in one unit and rented the other to a tenant. The pedestrian sought to defeat a motion for summary judgment by arguing that he required discovery on the question of whether the property was residential or commercial. The Appellate Division found that the New Jersey Supreme Court had held that it “had no intention to subsume small owner-occupied dwellings, such as two-or-three-family homes, within the classification of commercial property. Such uses are clearly in a category of their own, for they are residential both ‘in the nature of their ownership’ as well as in ‘the use to which the property is put.’”

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