Landlord Not Responsible for Visitor's Slip and Fall

Tenant's visitor sued landlord for negligence after he slipped and fell from the second step from the top of a staircase leading down to a basement apartment. The visitor was holding his 2-year-old son at the time. Landlord asked the court to dismiss the case, claiming that he wasn't responsible for the visitor's injuries. The court ruled for landlord. The visitor appealed and lost. In pretrial questioning, the visitor stated that he fell when his right foot twisted, causing him to fall down two steps. He said there was nothing on the stairs as he began to walk down, that he didn't see any defects with the stairs before he descended them, and that at the time of the accident he couldn't tell why he fell. He had visited the apartment three or four times before the date of the accident without incident, and tenant and two other people had walked down the stairs ahead of him that night with no problem. Tenant also stated that two days after the accident, he went back and saw loose cement on the right corner of the fourth step from the top of the stairs. But he didn't know whether it had come from the second step, where he twisted his foot. Since the visitor couldn't identify the cause of his fall, the case was properly dismissed.

Dennis v. Lakhani: 2013 NY Slip Op 00061, 2013 WL 85921 (App. Div. 2 Dept.; 1/9/13; Mastro, JP, Dickerson, Lott, Austin, JJ)