New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has found a way to deal with slippery pavements that have cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. In a move hailed as audacious but logical, the mayor has signed into law a rule that liability for personal injuries on sidewalks will henceforth be the responsibility of the owner/s of the adjacent property.

And another law accompanying that one will require the building-owners to take out public liability insurance to protect themselves from lawsuits over sidewalk injuries.    

In the past three years the city has paid about $270 million in lawsuits over frozen and uneven pavement. The real problem is that tort lawyers “know the city has deep pockets,” Mr Bloomberg said.

The new laws make sense, he says, “because property-owners already have the duty to keep the sidewalks in good repair”. Usually that means keeping them free of ice and snow.

The law doesn’t apply to small dwellings housing up to three families, and accident victims who can’t get compensation from the building-owner can still claim from the city.

Hailing the move as “reasonable and compassionate,” Mr Bloomberg said he hopes the move will stir legislators in the state capital at Albany and “serve as a catalyst for tort reform”.