Slip, Trip and Fall Injury

We’ve all tripped or fell down while walking in our lives. It may be funny or even embarrassing at times but it’s something that happens to the best of us.

In trip and fall cases, defendant property owners will generally not be held liable where a trip is caused by a trivial defect which is in plain sight.  What exactly is a trivial defect and how does the court system decide motions to dismiss lawsuits based upon the trivial defect defense?  The following Second Department appeals court decision provides an explanation.

Tesoriero v Brinckerhoff Park, LLC

2015 NY Slip Op 01938

Decided on March 11, 2015

Appellate Division, Second Department

DECISION & ORDER

Thousands of people each year are injured while slipping on ice, wet floors, or damaged walkways; or by falling from unstable balconies, damaged stairs, or into inadequately-signed holes. If you or a loved one has been impacted by such a personal injury, you may be able to seek damages from the property owner or your employer (if your injury happened on the job). These can include compensatory damages to:

As previously discussed on this blog, when you are bringing a lawsuit to recover damages for a slip and fall that happens after a snow storm, it's necessary to be familiar with applicable laws and regulations that govern how much time a property owner has after the end of a storm to make the adjoining sidewalk reasonably safe to walk on.

Slip, Trip and Fall Injury: Property owner liability for slip, trip an fall injuries is not absolute.  Property owners must be allowed a reasonable amount of time to remove hazardous conditions resulting from a storm.  However, the property owner cannot rely on the "storm in progress" regardless of the circumstances as the property owner found out in the case of Rijos v. Riverbay Corp., decided by the First Department appeals court on 4/2/13.