In Haydee Gallardo v. Walmart, A-65-24 (089466), a decision issued on July 30, 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court considered whether a snow-removal measure undertaken during an ongoing storm, the application of salt to a parking lot that had not been pretreated before precipitation began, creates “unusual circumstances” within the meaning of the first exception to the ongoing storm rule recognized in Pareja v. Princeton International Properties, 246 N.J. 546 (2021).
Justice Patterson, writing for a majority that included Chief Justice Rabner and Justices Pierre-Louis and Wainer Apter, held that it does not. The Supreme Court concluded that a snow-removal contractor’s spreading of salt on the minimal accumulation of snow at issue does not give rise to “unusual circumstances” warranting the imposition of a duty on a commercial landowner during an ongoing storm, and it reversed the Appellate Division and remanded for entry of summary judgment in the landowner’s favor. Justice Fasciale, joined by Justices Noriega and Hoffman, dissented.
By way of background, the seminal decision in this area is Pareja, in which the Supreme Court, for the first time, adopted the “ongoing storm rule.” Under that rule, absent “unusual circumstances,” a commercial landowner’s duty to remove snow and ice from its property does not arise during an ongoing storm, but instead arises only within a reasonable time after the precipitation ends. It recognized that it is “categorically inexpedient and impractical to remove or reduce hazards from snow and ice while the precipitation is ongoing,” the Pareja Court identified two “unusual circumstances” that may nevertheless give rise to a duty before a storm concludes: first, where the landowner’s actions “increase the risk to pedestrians and invitees on their property” by “exacerbat[ing] and increas[ing] the risk” of injury to the plaintiff; and second, where there is a “pre-existing risk on the premises before the storm.” Because the plaintiff in Pareja, who slipped on an icy driveway apron during an ongoing storm and broke his hip, could establish neither exception, the Pareja Court held that the landowner owed no duty and reversed the Appellate Division’s contrary decision.
In Gallardo, plaintiff Haydee Gallardo fell in the parking lot of Walmart’s Union Township store at approximately 1:30 p.m. on January 3, 2015, during an ongoing storm of mixed precipitation that had begun around 11:30 a.m. The Walmart’s snow-removal contractor, Land Pros of New Jersey, LLC, had not pretreated the lot before the storm. Instead, its co-owner arrived at 12:35 p.m. and “spread salt” on the “lots and walks” until 1:15 p.m., when the accumulation, estimated at “about a trace” to one-tenth of an inch, was too slight to warrant plowing. Gallardo’s snow-and-ice management expert opined that spreading salt on already-fallen snow melted it into water that refroze on the cold, untreated surface as “black ice,” thereby “exacerbat[ing]” the condition and “increas[ing] the risk.”
The trial court granted summary judgment to Land Pros but denied Walmart’s motions. A jury found Walmart negligent and returned a verdict that, after molding and prejudgment interest, resulted in a judgment in Gallardo’s favor of $1,328,658.59. The Appellate Division vacated the judgment and remanded for a new trial, but held that Walmart was not entitled to summary judgment, judgment at trial, or judgment notwithstanding the verdict because a genuine issue of material fact existed as to “whether Walmart’s conduct . . . made the parking lot more dangerous.” The Supreme Court denied Gallardo’s petition for certification and granted Walmart’s cross-petition.
On the principal issue, the Supreme Court rejected the interpretation, adopted by the trial court and urged by Gallardo, that the first Pareja exception applies whenever a commercial landowner’s remediation of snow and ice could be found to increase the risk to pedestrians and invitees. The Supreme Court explained that the decision impermissibly “reads the ‘unusual circumstances’ requirement out of the decision.” The “unusual circumstances” requirement is an “integral component” of Pareja’s holding, appearing both in the Supreme Court’s statement that the ongoing storm rule precludes a duty “absent unusual circumstance” and in its description of the two exceptions in which such circumstances may be found.
To illustrate the kind of “unusual circumstances” the first exception contemplates, the Pareja Court pointed to Terry v. Central Auto Radiators, Inc., 732 A.2d 713 (R.I. 1999), in which a duty arose during an ongoing storm only because the defendant had moved the plaintiff’s vehicle to a distant lot and directed her to traverse accumulating snow and ice to retrieve it. By contrast, salting a minimal accumulation of snow is an ordinary remediation effort, not an unusual circumstance. In construing the exception to reach every risk-increasing remediation, the Supreme Court reasoned that would “eviscerate the ongoing storm rule” and would incentivize landowners and their contractors “to forgo any remediation effort until a storm is over,” thereby increasing the risk to the very pedestrians and invitees the rule is meant to protect. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that Walmart was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The Supreme Court also asked the Committee on Model Civil Jury Charges to review Model Civil Jury Charge 5.20B and align it with the language of Pareja.
Justice Fasciale, joined by Justices Noriega and Hoffman, dissented. In his view, the majority misread Pareja by superimposing a separate, undefined “unusualness” requirement onto the first exception; the two circumstances Pareja identified, increasing the risk and a pre-existing risk, are themselves the “unusual circumstances,” such that a landowner who voluntarily undertakes snow removal and performs it unreasonably may be liable without any additional showing. The dissent further contended that Pareja should not have governed at all, both because Gallardo’s 2015 accident predated the 2021 Pareja decision and because the holding, by its terms, addresses public walkways rather than the private parking lot where Gallardo fell.
In sum, Gallardo confirms that the first Pareja exception is a narrow one. A commercial landowner, or its snow-removal contractor, does not lose the protection of the ongoing storm rule merely by undertaking ordinary remediation, such as salting a light accumulation, during a storm, even where a plaintiff’s expert contends that the effort increased the risk of injury. To survive summary judgment under the first exception, a plaintiff must identify genuinely “unusual circumstances” that exacerbate and increase the risk, circumstances comparable to those in Terry, not merely an ordinary snow-removal measure alleged to have been performed imperfectly.
For commercial landowners, property managers, and snow-and-ice contractors, the decision reinforces that reasonable remediation efforts undertaken in good faith during an ongoing storm will not, without more, expose them to liability, and it should discourage the very “wait until the storm ends” approach that the ongoing storm rule was designed to avoid.
The Gallardo decision is available here. For additional questions, please contact Robert J. Cahall, Esquire, and/or Igor Konstankevich, Esquire.
This article was prepared by McCormick & Priore, P.C. to provide information on recent legal developments of interest to our readers. This publication is in no way intended to provide legal advice or to create an attorney-client relationship. All Rights Reserved.