In Smith v. New York City Housing Authority, a slip-and-fall case decided January 14, 2015, the Appellate Division, Second Department held that the Supreme Court should have denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment.
“A real property owner or a party in possession or control of real property will be held liable for injuries sustained in a slip-and-fall accident involving snow and ice on its property only when it created the alleged dangerous condition or had actual or constructive notice of it.” Therefore, “a defendant who moves for summary judgment in a slip-and-fall case has the initial burden of making a prima facie showing, inter alia, that it did not create the alleged hazardous condition.”
Here, “[i]n support of its motion, the defendant failed to eliminate all triable issues of fact as to whether the patch of black ice upon which the plaintiff allegedly slipped and fell was created by its snow removal efforts in the days prior to the accident.”