An attorney for the owner of a Brooklyn building argued before the state’s highest court Tuesday that if the panel sides against his client and assigns them liability for an injury suffered on an icy sidewalk, it would effectively do away with the concept of an “out-of-possession landlord.”

The lawsuit, now before the New York Court of Appeals, was brought by Xiang Fu He, who claimed he was injured when he slipped and fell on ice in front of his job on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn in 2007. His employer, SDJ Trading, had leased the building from the defendant in the case, Troon Management.