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Nathan Frommer, Attorney At Law
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Also a Notary Public
I will give all your legal problems my personal attention. I understand
that legal problems are not easy to live with, and may add significant stress to your life. My goals include helping solve
your problems, giving you the attention you deserve, and doing my best to help eliminate your legal worries. I return
phone calls promptly, and I will keep you informed every step of the way. Personalized legal service, convenient contact,
and zealous advocacy are all part of my services.
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Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Civil Infraction Conversion
I first came across
this last fall. If the Commonwealth charges you with a crime, and the prosecutor offers to convert it to a civil infraction
on the condition that you pay a fine, you may want to seriously consider the option. A civil infraction is not a crime. It is like receiving
a traffic ticket. Although you must pay a fine for a traffic ticket, if you say pay you are not pleading guilty to a crime.
The same is true of a criminal charge that is converted to a civil infraction. Agreeing to convert a criminal charge to a civil infraction
and paying the resulting fine is not the equivalent of pleading out. You do not have to admit guilt. You will not have a guilty
plea on your Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI), but your CORI will have the date of your arrest. Although you may
have "dismissed" or "converted" on your CORI, it is better than having a guilty finding or a Continued
Without A Finding (CWOF) on your CORI.
Legal Blog Disclaimer:
The thoughts and musings posted in this blog are Nathan Frommer’s, and Nathan Frommer’s
alone. They reflect no one else’s opinion, unless they are responses to Nathan Frommer’s posts. Nothing in this
blog creates an attorney-client relationship. This blog does not convey free legal advice, so don’t rely on it. Please
do not post any information in response on here that you would not want others to read. If you are seeking legal advice, feel
free to contact an attorney.
10:44 am est
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Blizzard of January 12, 2011
All this snow put me in the mood
to review the new case law in Massachusetts covering a property owner’s duty to remove snow and ice. In a case decided
on a warm and toasty July day of 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court vacated the long-standing rule on a property owner’s
liability for injuries caused by snow and ice accumulation. That case is Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., 457 Mass.
368 (2010).
Under the old rule, the “natural/unnatural accumulation rule,” a property
owner was only liable for “unnatural accumulations” of snow and ice. See Aylward v. McCloskey, 412 Mass.
77 (1992); Sullivan v. Brookline, 416 Mass. 825 (1994). Natural accumulations, for which
the property owner would not be liable for any resulting injury, were untouched snow and ice as it accumulated naturally-
from the sky right after it fell. The snow and ice would become an unnatural accumulation in any situation in which the property
owner changed the snow and ice, such as shoveling it into a pile, and that pile somehow caused an injury to someone who lawfully
came upon the owner’s property. Initially I thought the court created a rule that encouraged property owners to not shovel or plow snow from
their walkways or parking lots. However, even an untouched natural accumulation that is never
touched can become unnatural- by allowing foot traffic to change it, or from the accumulation melting and then refreezing.
Id. As you can imagine, this created huge confusion in the Commonwealth. It appears that other New England jurisdictions
thought this rule was ridiculous. See Fuller v. Housing Authority of Providence, 108 RI 770, 773 (1971).
So now, in Papadopoulos, the court
overturned the rule for the more cogent reasonable person standard. In regards to snow and ice, a property owner has a
duty to act as a reasonable person under all the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to
others, the probable seriousness of such injuries, and the burden of reducing or avoiding such risk. Id. at 384.
In court, the fact-finder (a judge or jury) will determine what snow and ice removal efforts are reasonable in light of the
expense they impose on the landowner and the probability and seriousness of the foreseeable harm to others. Id. Given the
severity of the storm out today, we may soon be seeing how the court applies this rule in multiple fact patterns. I hope no one will be seriously hurt!
Legal Blog Disclaimer:
The thoughts and
musings posted in this blog are Nathan Frommer’s, and Nathan Frommer’s alone. They reflect no one else’s
opinion, unless they are responses to Nathan Frommer’s posts. Nothing in this blog creates an attorney-client relationship.
This blog does not convey free legal advice, so don’t rely on it. Please do not post any information in response on
here that you would not want others to read. If you are seeking legal advice, feel free to contact an attorney.
7:37 pm est
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2011.01.01
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