# Monaco v. Hartz Mountain Corp.

> Supreme Court of New Jersey · February 9, 2004 · 178 N.J. 401

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9754304

## Case

- **Full name:** Luigi Monaco and Francesca Monaco, His Wife, Plaintiffs-Appellants and Cross-Respondents, v. Hartz Mountain Corporation, Defendant-Respondent, and Abc Corp., Def Corp. and Ghi Corp., (Fictitious Designations Intended to Designate Unknown Entities Responsible for Proper Installation, Maintenance and Repair of a Certain Sign and/or Signpost), Defendants, and City of Newark, Defendant and Cross-Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of New Jersey
- **Decided:** February 9, 2004
- **Citations:** 178 N.J. 401; 840 A.2d 822; 2004 N.J. LEXIS 22
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Verniero
- **Judges:** Long, Verniero
- **Cited by:** 52 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9754304

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a commercial landlord had a duty to make reasonable inspections of its own property and an abutting sidewalk and to take such steps as were necessary to correct or give warnings of any hazardous condition under both the "classic commercial landowner liability stan…
- finding commercial landlord owed duty to employee of tenant as invitee, and that, under Hopkins’s analysis, “[t]he fairness and justice of recognizing a duty in such circumstances are clear beyond cavil”
- holding that given the property manager’s “inspections and the obviousness of the problems . . . the issue of notice is plainly one for the jury”

## Opinion text

Justice VERNIERO,
concurring.
I join the Court’s disposition in respect of both the municipality and commercial landowner. I write briefly only to emphasize that I agree with the Court’s legal conclusion concerning the landowner in view of the fact that the dislodged sign was on the landowner’s property (i.e., the sidewalk that the landowner installed and maintained). At the heart of our law is the notion that a party’s “duty of reasonable care toward another turns on whether the imposition of such a duty satisfies an abiding sense of basic fairness under all of the circumstances in light of considerations of *421 public policy.” Hopkins v. Fox & Lazo Realtors, 132 N.J. 426, 439 , 625 A.2d 1110 (1993). Fairness would require that in certain circumstances a commercial landowner should be free of legal responsibility, such as when a defective condition is far removed from that party’s control. That is not this ease based on the facts and circumstances set forth meticulously in the Court’s opinion.
For affirmance in part/reversal in part — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, ALBIN and WALLACE — 7.
Opposed — None.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9754304. Public record. Not legal advice.