Aaron Cantú
In 2016, Michael Sloane was thrown off his bike after slipping on a hidden patch of ice at the edge of this bridge above the Santa Fe River.
If you were in Santa Fe late last week, you likely tried walking on sidewalks and roads covered with snow and ice. In some areas where public or private owners haven't yet removed it, walkways can be dangerous. A slip on ice can result in a serious injury—and an expensive lawsuit.
A review of documents from the city's Risk Management Division to resolve litigation since January 2017 shows it paid at least $432,500 to settle four different lawsuits, all stemming from falls on city property. The largest one, at $250,000, arose from a longtime state official slipping on an ice patch.
At least two of the claims were settled by the city's insurance carrier, Travelers Insurance, which pays for settlements and litigation after costs surpass the city's $50,000 deductible. Officially, the city confronts ice patches and snow accumulations of 2 inches and above with a mixture of crushed lava rock and rock salt.
Regina Wheeler, Public Works Department director, says most of the city's roughly 400 miles of sidewalk are privately owned. For municipal-controlled sidewalks, Wheeler says the city's plowing and de-icing plan hews close to its road plan.
"Areas with the most traffic are addressed first," she tells SFR. "As we make our way from high-traffic areas, we go to connector areas."
A huge responsibility for sidewalk maintenance falls on private property owners, Wheeler says, who are liable if someone slips and falls on their property: "A key to having our pedestrian infrastructure working in the city is every private property owner does their duty and is responsible for clearing sidewalks next to their property."
About 100 miles of public open space, including walkways and road medians, are overseen by the Parks and Recreation Department, according to director John Muñoz. He says teams make foot patrols of snow and ice conditions two to three times after a weather event, and are supposed to keep logs of each dispatch.
"It's very manual-labor intensive," Muñoz told SFR last Friday. "For example, these last couple of days, we've had people out at 4 am working these [high-priority] areas."
Muñoz also says the city will post warning signs for particularly icy areas. That hasn't always happened consistently, according to litigation reviewed by SFR. In the case of bicyclist Michael Sloane, who later became director of the state Game and Fish Department, a lack of maintenance and signage wound up costing the city a quarter of a million dollars in settlement money.
According to a complaint filed by Sloane's attorneys in the First Judicial District, an obscured ice patch along the Santa Fe River Trail caused Sloane to be thrown from his bicycle, severely fracturing his femur. The incident happened on Valentine's Day, 2016.
"Suddenly and unexpectedly, and without cause or warning, [Sloane's] bike slipped on a large patch of ice hidden by a shadow on the city's trail," the complaint reads. A shadow cast by multi-story condominium buildings at 927 Alto St. made the patch difficult to see, the complaint alleges.
Pierre Levy, the lead attorney who represented Sloane, says New Mexico's tort claims act holds public entities liable for faulty maintenance resulting in injury or death. Over the course of Sloane's lawsuit, which the parties settled in October 2017, Levy says he learned that Santa Fe "had no records of ice removal being done on the river trail," which bolsters the claim of city negligence.
"The city is immune from liability for design defects under the tort claims law, but it can be liable for faulty maintenance," Levy tells SFR.
Other lawsuits against the city for similar spills reviewed by SFR, while not related to icy conditions, also cited Santa Fe's responsibility under state law to maintain its public areas. The suits sometimes included defendant private property owners whose buildings abutted city walkways.
In 2015, Washington-based artist Loa Ryan sued the city of Santa Fe after she tripped and fell on a downtown sidewalk along Chappelle Street during the Santa Fe Indian Market. A complaint filed by Ryan's attorneys in September 2016 says she suffered personal injuries, wage losses and other damages.
"At all times material, Defendant City of Santa Fe owed Plaintiff the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep the sidewalks safe for [Ryan's] use, whether or not the dangerous condition that is a cause of her occurrence was obvious," Ryan's complaint reads.
The city paid Ryan $125,000 in January 2018. The year before, it paid $30,000 to a woman who fell on a sidewalk near 2524 Avenido Isidro, and another $27,500 to a woman who fell near Siringo Road and Calle Florinda.
In light of the winter storms and increased pedestrian hazards, Muñoz tells SFR the parks department's staff is currently "ramping up" to handle the volume of maintenance they're having to perform.
In the meantime, he says, people should keep an eye out for posted warnings—though they can be small and hard to notice.
"If crews manually cannot break up the ice or if it's too embedded, there are some areas we will block off," Muñoz says.
The city's interim risk and safety manager, Barbara Boltrek, was unavailable for further discussion with SFR.
