Utah Supreme Court will review the condo snow-pile case
Utah Supreme Court will review the condo snow-pile case
2026-09-19 · Utah · Courts · Pending — not yet law
A visitor slipped on a pile of snow a resident had brushed off his car onto a condominium sidewalk eight hours earlier. The Court of Appeals held neither the resident nor the association was liable. The Utah Supreme Court granted certiorari in April 2026, so the rule is not settled.
Andrews v. Stoney Brook Condominium Association, 2025 UT App 126, was decided on August 21, 2025 and is published. Certiorari was granted under docket No. 20251286-SC on April 10, 2026.1 Until the Supreme Court rules, the Court of Appeals decision stands but its central holding is under review.
What the Court of Appeals decided
Two things. First, on ordinary premises liability, the snow pile was open and obvious as a matter of law — the plaintiff admitted she could see it, and surveillance video showed a clear corridor at least a foot wide available to her the entire time.
Second, and this is the part on review, the court held as a matter of first impression that the open-and-obvious rule can also defeat a claim pleaded as ordinary negligence rather than premises liability. Paragraph 40: “the open and obvious [danger rule] applies in ordinary negligence cases but only when the alleged cause of injury is a condition on the land instead of a defendant's active negligence.”
The reasoning, and the worry driving it
The court's concern was pleading around the rule. Paragraph 30: “Andrews's position…would render the rule an effective nullity, because plaintiffs could easily plead around it simply by pleading a negligence claim rather than a premises liability claim.”
The doctrinal source is the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343A(1), quoted at paragraph 16: “[A] possessor of land is not liable to [the possessor's] invitees for physical harm caused to them by any activity or condition on the land whose danger is known or obvious to them, unless the possessor should anticipate the harm…” And at paragraph 28, the rationale: possessors “may reasonably assume that members of the public will not be harmed by known or obvious dangers which are not extreme, and which any reasonable person exercising ordinary attention, perception, and intelligence could be expected to avoid.”
The resident who brushed the snow was treated the same way, because his act — hours earlier, with the plaintiff nowhere present — created a condition on the land rather than active negligence directed at her.
Why this is an association case and not just a tort case
Snow removal is one of the two or three services almost every Utah association in a mountain or valley community actually buys. The association here had a contracted crew that had cleared the walkway shortly before the fall — which is the fact pattern a well-run association is trying to produce.
The decision, if it survives review, means an association that clears a path and leaves an obvious obstruction alongside it is in a materially better position than one whose exposure turns on how the plaintiff labels the claim. If it does not survive, the labelling question reopens.
What the Community Association Act does and does not say
Nothing. The opinion construes no provision of Title 57. Utah's association statutes address governance, assessments, records, insurance and rule limits; they do not create or limit tort duties to visitors. An association's liability exposure runs through general premises law and through the liability policy § 57-8a-403(1)(b) requires it to maintain — “liability insurance covering all occurrences commonly insured against for death, bodily injury, and property damage” — to the extent reasonably available.
Our Utah insurance requirements page sets out the coverage the statute mandates and the deductible-allocation rules that sit alongside it.
Where the maintenance obligation actually comes from
Not from the tort case. Section 57-8a-224 and the declaration allocate maintenance between association and owner, and the state's ombudsman has been applying that allocation to cost disputes — most recently in Advisory Opinion 2026-19, where the association carried a common-area pipe repair and the owner carried the cost of diagnosing it.2 Who must maintain and who must compensate are separate questions with separate sources.
What to watch next
A Utah Supreme Court opinion. The question presented reaches whether the open-and-obvious rule can be applied to an ordinary negligence claim at all, and the answer will decide how a great many Utah association slip-and-fall cases are pleaded. There is no argument date on the public record yet.
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