Partner Sara David Secures Dismissal of Bronx County Premises Liability Case

 

Plaintiff, a tenant in Defendant’s Bronx County apartment building, claimed to have tripped while descending the building’s interior stairs on her way to physical therapy for injuries she sustained in a prior workplace accident nine years earlier.

Sara David litigated the case from its inception in 2019 and argued the appeal in November2024. Through detailed deposition questioning,reference to the photographs Plaintiff claimed to have taken, and the expert opinion of a Biomechanical Engineer, Sara proved both that the defect was trivial and therefore not actionable, and that Plaintiff’s description of the accident was physically impossible.

On December 31, 2024, the First Department unanimously held that the Defendant building owner was entitled to summary judgment. The Court held that the defect Plaintiff identified as the sole cause of her fall was trivial and therefore not actionable. The Court also agreed with Defendant’s expert that the accident could not have happened as Plaintiff described because her left foot could not have contacted the far-right side of the step where Plaintiff claimed the defect was located. Although Plaintiff’s expert identified a litany of allegedly dangerous conditions in the stairway when he inspected it five years after the accident, the First Department properly held that they were irrelevant as Plaintiff did not cite them as a proximate cause of her fall.

Plaintiff claimed to have sustained injuries to her cervical and lumbar spine, knee and shoulder and to have undergone cervical and lumbar fusion surgeries, as well as knee and shoulder surgeries after the subject accident. Plaintiff’s counsel demanded $10M.

Sara previously won summary judgment on behalf of the property management company.

Hats off, as well, to GVK’s appellate team, Briggs Johnson and Edward Tobin, who provided appellate assistance.