Shoveling is For Thee, Not For Me.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has made a new rule that we have to shovel our side-walks or be liable for falls.  Until now, a property owner was only liable if someone slipped on an "un-natural" accumulation of ice or snow, rather than on ice or snow as distributed naturally from the heavens.  In other words, if the property owner caused a hazard by moving snow around and someone slipped on it, he was liable.  But he was not responsible for snow or ice that occurred naturally.

The Boston Herald found, however, in this article, that three of the seven justices of the Supreme Judicial Court don't shovel their own walks.  That's only for the little people, of course.  One of the Justices judge gave this excuse:

“We plowed, we put down salt. We’re doing the best we can,” said Cowin. “I was trying to take some time off this week.”



Yeah, that would work in her court.  I'm sure she would excuse a property owner from any liability, in a lawsuit filed by a person slipped on the ice.  "Hey, I was busy trying to get some R & R."

The other part of this decision that flies in the face of our legal system is that only the legislature can pass laws, not the Supreme Judicial Court.  It continues its tradition of illegally taking power which is not permitted to it by our State Declaration of Rights, which asserts, "The Judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers."

That statement seems simple enough that even a judge could understand it!