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Grip of Liability: Why a Missing Handrail Spells Trouble for Defendants, Even Without a Clear Cause of the Fall
April 5, 2024
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Recently, in Curto v. Kahn Property Owner, LLC, 2024 N.Y. Slip Op. 01290, the Second Department faced plaintiffs’ appeal after the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant property owner. Plaintiffs (both the injured plaintiff and his wife, suing derivatively) alleged that Mr. Curto sustained injuries after a trip and fall occurring as he descended a flight of stairs while attending a wedding reception at the premises. In initially moving for summary judgment, defendants argued that plaintiff’s testimony could not clearly identify a cause of his fall down the stairs.
The Second Department reversed the lower court’s award of summary judgment to defendants. In its reasoning, the court did agree with defendants that plaintiff was unable to clearly identify a specific cause of his fall: “[W]here it is just as likely that some other factor, such as a misstep or a loss of balance, could have caused a trip and fall accident, any determination by the trier of fact as to causation would be based upon sheer speculation.” However, the court’s agreement with defendants’ argument ended there, stating further that even if something like a misstep caused a plaintiff’s fall, “the absence of a handrail, if required by law, may raise an issue of fact as to whether the absence of the handrail was a proximate cause of his or her injury.”
Importantly, the court emphasized that the key factor in its reversal was plaintiff’s testimony directly implicating the absence of a stairwell handrail. “Although [plaintiff] was not sure what caused him to lose his balance, the injured plaintiff testified that he was ‘looking for a handrail’ before descending the final set of steps but observed that no handrails were available.” The court clarified that the absence of a handrail alone will not create a triable issue of fact without testimony from plaintiff “that [they] reached out for a handrail either before or during [their] fall” or without any showing that “the lack of handrails contributed to the accident.”
This case should put premises owners on notice that the absence of a handrail, when required by law, may ultimately reduce plaintiff’s burden in both proving the cause of their fall and in opposing a defendant’s summary judgment motion.