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Recent Cases: Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court in Slip and Fall

In a decision issued on March 18, 2015, a New York appeals court reversed a lower court decision dismissing a slip and fall case. The plaintiff was a 12-year-old boy. He was injured when he slipped and fell on "loose and broken pieces of asphalt" as he was running towards an ice cream truck near an Ikea store in Brooklyn.

There were two interesting things about the decision. First, like many slip and fall cases, the case turned on constructive notice--how long was the loose/broken asphalt on the ground before the accident so that the defendants should have seen it and corrected the dangerous condition? The appeals court said the defendants failed to show when they last cleaned or inspected the area, so they did not establish lack of constructive notice.

The more interesting thing is that apparently the boy told staff at the hospital where he was taken that he tripped over his shoelaces. The defendants found this in the hospital records and basically said, "Ha! He did not slip on loose/broken asphalt; he tripped over his shoe laces, so we're not at fault."

The appeals court said not so fast, the mother was not sure what the boy told hospital staff about how the accident happened, and the father testified he saw the boy slip and fall on asphalt and saw that the boys' shoes were tied. The court said this evidence created an "issue of fact" for a jury to decide about what caused the accident and what the boy told the hospital staff.

Good job by the appeals court. The next step is a trial or settlement.

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