In Pronk v. Standard Hotel, 2018 NY Slip Op 00903 (App. Div. 1st Dept. Feb. 8, 2018), the court affirmed the denial of defendants’ motion for summary judgment. In this personal injury / premises liability case, plaintiff sued after he cut his left foot on a glass candleholder while entering a spa pool in Le Bain Club at the Standard Hotel in Manhattan.
From the decision:
There are triable issues of fact as to whether defendants breached their duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition by placing glass candleholders on tables in close proximity to the spa pool, where people could be expected to be walking barefoot, and whether that breach proximately caused plaintiff’s injuries (see Boderick v R.Y. Mgt. Co., Inc., 71 AD3d 144, 147 [1st Dept 2009]).
Additionally, defendants never met their initial burden to show that they lacked notice. In particular, defendants failed to show that they lacked actual notice of glass in the spa pool, because none of their witnesses testified or averred that they never received any complaints about the area before the accident (see O’Connor v Restani Constr. Corp., 137 AD3d 672, 673 [1st Dept 2016]). Defendants failed to show that they lacked constructive notice, because their employee who was responsible for checking the spa pool averred that she did not check the pool for about five hours before the accident (see id.; see also Jahn v SH Entertainment, LLC, 117 AD3d 473, 473 [1st Dept 2014]). Given defendants’ failure to meet their initial burden, the burden never shifted to plaintiff