Missing Stair Riser Triggers Summary Judgment for Defendants in Staircase Slip Case
NY Slip Op 00042
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Nancy M. Bannon, J.), entered January 6, 2016, which granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Defendants established entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, in this action for personal injuries arising out of plaintiff’s fall on an exterior stairway attached to defendants’ building. Plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether defendants had actual or constructive notice of the allegedly defective condition of the stairway, i.e., that it was missing a riser on one step. There is no evidence in the record that defendants created the condition or had actual notice of it. Nor is there evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer that the condition existed for a sufficient length of time to charge defendants with constructive notice. The affirmation of plaintiff’s attorney, which merely stated that plaintiff would testify at trial to certain facts, was insufficient to defeat summary judgment, as it was not based on the attorney’s personal knowledge (see Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 562 [1980]).
