Visitor Tripped and Fell at Building Entrance

Visitor to landlord's building sued landlord for negligence. She was injured when she lost her footing on a concrete stairway landing at the building's entrance. The injured woman fell after stepping into a defective area on the surface of the landing where the top layer of concrete had been scraped off. Landlord asked the court to dismiss the case without a trial. The court ruled against landlord. Landlord appealed and won. Although the injured woman had testified in pretrial questioning that she had slipped on granular material collected in the defective area, she denied this in a sworn statement made in opposition to landlord's request to dismiss the case. In her written statement, she claimed that she was caused to trip and fall when her foot got stuck in the defective area. The height differential to which the woman attributed the accident was less than an inch between the defective area and the rest of the landing. This was a minor defect and didn't present a significant hazard.

Gaud v. Markham: NYLJ, 8/25/03, p. 18, col. 1 (App. Div. 1 Dept.; Buckley, PJ, Tom, Andrias, Williams, Friedman, JJ)