INSUFFICIENT WEIGHT BEARING CAPACITY OF SHEETROCK FORMING THE ATTIC FLOOR WAS NOT AN OPEN AND OBVIOUS CONDITION (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department. reversing Supreme Court, determined defendant homeowners’ motion for summary judgment should not have been granted. Plaintiff, who was hired to clean defendants’ attic, was injured when she stepped on sheetrock and fell through:

Landowners have a duty to maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition … ‘ However, there is no duty to protect or warn against an open and obvious condition which, as a matter of law, is not inherently dangerous … . “While the issue of whether a hazard is . . . open and obvious is generally fact-specific and thus a jury question, a court may determine that a risk was open and obvious as a matter of law when the established facts compel that conclusion, and may do so on the basis of clear and undisputed evidence” … .

Here, the homeowners failed to establish their prima facie entitlement to judgment a matter of law, as they failed to establish that the insufficient weight-bearing capacity of the sheetrock ceiling was open and obvious and not inherently dangerous as a matter of law … . Gallardo v Gilbert, 2017 NY Slip Op 06256, Second Dept 8-23-17

 

NEGLIGENCE (INSUFFICIENT WEIGHT BEARING CAPACITY OF SHEETROCK FORMING THE ATTIC FLOOR WAS NOT AN OPEN AND OBVIOUS CONDITION (SECOND DEPT))/OPEN AND OBVIOUS (NEGLIGENCE, INSUFFICIENT WEIGHT BEARING CAPACITY OF SHEETROCK FORMING THE ATTIC FLOOR WAS NOT AN OPEN AND OBVIOUS CONDITION (SECOND DEPT))