PLAINTIFF’S CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ABOUT WHEN THE PUDDLE WAS FIRST SEEN AND HOW LONG THE PUDDLE HAD BEEN ON THE FLOOR PRECLUDED SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS SLIP AND FALL CASE, SUPREME COURT REVERSED.
The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined plaintiff’s conflicting evidence about how long a puddle of water had been on defendant store’s floor precluded summary judgment, without regard for the sufficiency of defendant’s opposing papers. Plaintiff testified she didn’t see the puddle before she fell and she and her daughter had been shopping for 15 minutes prior to the fall. . Plaintiff’s daughter testified she saw the puddle when they first entered the store and they had been shopping for 45 minutes prior to the fall:
… [T]he plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing of her entitlement to judgment as a matter of law on the issue of liability. The plaintiff’s submissions provided conflicting evidence with respect to how long the puddle had been on the floor prior to the plaintiff’s accident, and were insufficient to demonstrate, prima facie, that the defendant had actual notice of the puddle, or that it had existed for a sufficient length of time for the defendant’s employees to discover and remedy it. The plaintiff’s submissions also failed to demonstrate, prima facie, that she was free from comparative fault … . Hernandez v Conway Stores, Inc., 2016 NY Slip Op 07001, 2nd Dept 10-26-16
NEGLIGENCE (PLAINTIFF’S CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ABOUT WHEN THE PUDDLE WAS FIRST SEEN AND HOW LONG THE PUDDLE HAD BEEN ON THE FLOOR PRECLUDED SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS SLIP AND FALL CASE, SUPREME COURT REVERSED)/SLIP AND FALL (PLAINTIFF’S CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ABOUT WHEN THE PUDDLE WAS FIRST SEEN AND HOW LONG THE PUDDLE HAD BEEN ON THE FLOOR PRECLUDED SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS SLIP AND FALL CASE, SUPREME COURT REVERSED)/SUMMARY JUDGMENT (SLIP AND FALL, (PLAINTIFF’S CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ABOUT WHEN THE PUDDLE WAS FIRST SEEN AND HOW LONG THE PUDDLE HAD BEEN ON THE FLOOR PRECLUDED SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS SLIP AND FALL CASE, SUPREME COURT REVERSED)