Usually, when people say the highway is a parking lot, they're referring to a traffic jam. But apparently in New York state, sometimes, the phrase can be taken literally.

On June 2, the state's Court of Appeals ruled that Mamaroneck, N.Y., resident Margaret Groninger could not sue for her slip and fall on ice in the village's parking lot. The ruling supported the village's argument that, because it neither received prior notice about that icy defect nor caused it, it could not be sued, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Groninger had argued that state law lists only six municipal locations that require advance notice of defects: sidewalks, crosswalks, streets, highways, bridges and culverts. However, four judges on the court ruled that the village's parking lot serves the "functional purpose" of a highway, "open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel." On the other hand, three dissenting judges say that's so obviously untrue "as hardly to merit serious discussion," according to AP.