You mean make everything near you as safe as humanely possible so that people don't hurt themselves on it. Create so many rules and policies that it takes 3 days and 50 pages of documentation(in case you get sued anyways) to clean up a spill on isle 6.
What kind of sidewalk becomes slippery with soapy water? Most sidewalks are concrete and would not be slippery unless a very viscous substance were poured on them, and even then not for a long time. Sounds like maybe a defect in the finish of the sidewalk. The entity that installed a sidewalk with a surface that might become slippery, on a highly inclined grade, appears to be negligent as well. That's why I assumed ice, as it's the only thing that made sense.
Some people just can't accept that when bad things happen it isn't always someone else's fault.
But I know that a good portion of people hold your point of view, including my 12-year-old who is never at fault for anything. I pass no judgement on you and will just agree to disagree.
I've walked up and down that sidewalk hundreds of times, in dry, wet, and cold conditions. I have never thought twice of walking down it in the rain.
From visual inspection, the water was not obviously soapy. All it looked like was a wet patch of sidewalk. It looked just fine to step on.
> IANAL but I believe the legal standard that would be applied is reasonableness. Is it reasonable for a person, traversing a highly-inclined street, in freezing weather, to expect the street not to contain any frozen patches of water.
It wasn't an ice slick, it hasn't rained or snowed in the past week, so the street was otherwise bone-dry. There was no indication that the situation was dangerous. I've never seen anyone else, before, or since, be stupid enough to dump a bunch of soap on that sidewalk, either, so its not exactly a common hazard.
It's not that bloody hard to run your business without creating a hazard to the public. I don't care if your revenue is a million, or a billion dollars a year. Get it right, and don't hurt people.