Stewart v. 104 Wallace Street, Inc.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

PASHMAN, J.

In this case we are called upon once again to review this State’s law of sidewalk negligence. In particular, we must decide whether an abutting commercial landowner is liable for a pedestrian’s injuries caused by a dilapidated sidewalk. Most recently, in Yanhko v. Fane, 70 N.J. 528 (1976), the majority of a divided Court upheld the old rule of nonliability and dismissed plaintiffs’ action for failure to state a prima facie case. Today, for the reasons stated below, we overrule Yanhko and hold that a plaintiff has a cause of action against a…