Summary Judgment Won in New York Slip and Fall Case

We secured summary judgment in a New York case in which the plaintiff claimed that she slipped and fell on stairs in our client’s building. The plaintiff alleged that she slipped on a wet condition on the stairway landing in an inadequately illuminated stairway. The defendant submitted an affidavit of its expert, which stated that the lighting measurements taken in the stairway complied with code. The defendant also demonstrated that it did not create the condition by submitting an affidavit of the building’s porter, who stated that neither he nor any other porter mopped that morning. The affidavit further established that the defendant did not have notice of the alleged wet condition or defective lighting, as it did not receive any complaints about a hazardous condition on the floor at any time before the accident, and that he inspected the premises approximately two hours prior to the plaintiff’s incident and did not observe any defective condition. In light of this evidence, the plaintiff’s claim that the area was mopped by the defendant was speculative, as she was unable to present any facts sufficient to establish when the stairway was mopped or if the cause of the wet stairway was due to the defendant’s mopping the stairway.