The plaintiff slipped and fell on ice near a commercial coffee shop.
During the jury trial, the court was asked to rule on whether the coffee shop was an occupier of its outdoor patio and the adjacent municipal sidewalk.
The court held that the patio was not a common element under the lease and that the coffee shop was its sole occupier.
Furthermore, by constructing a fence that funnelled customers across a specific portion of the municipal sidewalk and by actively clearing and salting that area, the coffee shop assumed sufficient control over the sidewalk to be considered an occupier under the Occupiers' Liability Act.
