[nopelynopington]

Grass can survive leaves, I don't see dead patches on my lawn because I didn't move the leaves around

[obruchez]

I have the opposite anecdote. I left a lot of leaves on our lawn last winter (by pure laziness) and it definitely damaged the lawn. Edit: it was a rather young lawn, I guess (less than 2 years).

[AaronAPU]

This is directly contradicted by a lifetime of witnessing dead grass under regions of leaves which were missed the previous fall.