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THE DEFENDANT CONSTRUCTION COMPANY DID NOT DEMONSTRATE IT DID NOT HAVE CONSTRUCTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SIGN ON THE SIDEWALK OVER WHICH PLAINTIFF ALLEGEDLY TRIPPED AND FELL AND DID NOT DEMONSTRATE IT WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRESENCE OF THE SIGN ON THE SIDEWALK (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing (modifying) Supreme Court, determined defendant construction company (Pinto) did not demonstrate that it did not have constructive notice of the condition alleged to have caused plaintiff’s slip and fall (a construction sign on the sidewalk) and that it did not create the condition:

Pinto failed to meet its initial burden on its cross motion with respect to constructive notice because its submissions “failed to establish as a matter of law that the [dangerous] condition [was] not visible and apparent or that [it] had not existed for a sufficient length of time before the accident to permit [Pinto] or [its] employees to discover and remedy [it]” … . Testimony from Pinto’s superintendent that Pinto had a general policy of taking down and storing its construction signs at the end of each workday was insufficient to establish that Pinto lacked constructive notice of the dangerous condition because Pinto failed to establish that it had complied with that general policy prior to the occurrence of the incident in question … .

Pinto also failed to establish as a matter of law that it did not create the allegedly dangerous condition because its own submissions raise triable issues of fact with respect to that issue … . There is no dispute that Pinto’s submissions established that the sign plaintiff tripped over belonged to Pinto. Although the deposition testimony from Pinto’s superintendent established that, at the time of the accident, Pinto had not been present at the work site for about a week, he did not know how the sign ended up on the ground or how long it had been there, and he only speculated that the sign may have been used by another contractor who failed to properly put it away.  Brioso v City of Buffalo, 2022 NY Slip Op 06380, Fourth Dept 11-10-22

Practice Point: Defendant construction company did not demonstrate it did not have constructive knowledge of and was not responsible for the presence of the construction sign on the sidewalk over which plaintiff allegedly tripped and fell.

 

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