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DEFECT NOT TRIVIAL AS A MATTER OF LAW, DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR A JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED.

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined defendant’s motion for a judgment as a matter of law should not have been granted. The five-inch-long, three-inch-wide and two-inch-deep defect in the step which caused plaintiff to fall was not trivial as a matter of law:

Generally, the issue of whether a dangerous or defective condition exists depends on the facts of each case and is a question of fact for the jury … . However, property owners may not be held liable for trivial defects which, considering “all the specific facts and circumstances of the case, not size alone,” do not “unreasonably imperil[ ]” the safety of a pedestrian … . In other words, physically small defects are actionable “when their surrounding circumstances or intrinsic characteristics make them difficult for a pedestrian to see or to identify as hazards or difficult to traverse safely on foot” … . There is no “minimal dimension test or per se rule” that the condition must be of a certain height or depth to be actionable … . In determining whether a defect is trivial as a matter of law, the court must examine all of the facts presented, “including the width, depth, elevation, irregularity and appearance of the defect along with the time, place and circumstance’ of the injury” … . * * *

Here, [defendant] failed to show that there was no rational process by which the jury could have found in favor of the plaintiff and against it … . Accepting the plaintiff’s evidence as true, and giving him every favorable inference which can be reasonably drawn from that evidence, [defendant] failed to establish that the defect was trivial as a matter of law. … [Defendant] relied on the plaintiff’s photograph of the defect and the testimony of his witness … who testified that the photograph showed “minor wear” to the stair. The dimensions of the defect cannot be ascertained from that one indistinct photograph … . The location of the chip on the walking surface of a stair also figures into the analysis of whether the defect was trivial … . Accordingly, under the circumstances, a rational jury could have concluded that the defect was not trivial. Pitt v New York City Tr. Auth., 2017 NY Slip Op 00203, 2nd Dept 1-11-17

 

NEGLIGENCE (DEFECT NOT TRIVIAL AS A MATTER OF LAW, DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR A JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED)/SLIP AND FALL (DEFECT NOT TRIVIAL AS A MATTER OF LAW, DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR A JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED)/TRIVIAL DEFECT (DEFECT NOT TRIVIAL AS A MATTER OF LAW, DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR A JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED)

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