If you were injured on someone else's property in New York City, whether you slipped on an unsalted lobby floor, fell on a broken stair, or were hurt because a building's security failed, a NYC premises liability lawyer can tell you whether the owner is responsible. These cases are a type of personal injury claim, and nearly all of them come down to one question: did the owner know, or should the owner have known, about the danger in time to fix it.
That question is answered with records, not with impressions, and the records have a short life. Cleaning logs, work orders, complaints, and video are all easier to obtain in the first weeks than in the first year. Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower goes after them immediately. Below are the questions injured people ask our premises liability attorneys most.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
You may have a case if a dangerous condition on property caused your injury and the person or company responsible for that property failed to fix it, clean it up, or warn you about it. That covers apartment buildings, stores and supermarkets, restaurants, office buildings, parking garages, hotels, schools, and public property.
Falling by itself is not a case. What makes it one is a condition that should not have been there and a party that had the responsibility and the opportunity to address it. Our premises liability lawyers review the facts at no cost.
Almost every claim is decided on these three points, in this order.
Ownership is not always the answer. A landlord, a managing agent, a commercial tenant, a maintenance contractor, or a snow removal company can each be responsible for a different part of the same building. Leases and service contracts decide who was obligated to inspect and repair, which is why those documents are among the first things requested.
Not every imperfection is a defect. What matters is whether the condition presented a real hazard given how the space was used, which takes into account lighting, the flow of foot traffic, the height of a raised sidewalk flag or a stair riser, the surface material, and whether the condition violated a building or maintenance requirement.
This is where cases are won and lost. Responsibility follows from actual knowledge, from a condition that existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it, or from the owner having created the condition in the first place. A recurring problem, such as a leak that reappears every time it rains or a spot that is always wet, can establish knowledge even without proof of the specific puddle you fell in.
Depending on where it happened, a claim can run against the building owner, the landlord or managing agent, a commercial tenant that controlled its own space, the superintendent's employer, a cleaning or maintenance contractor, an elevator or escalator company, a snow and ice removal contractor, a construction contractor working in the building, and a public agency where the property is publicly owned.
More than one is common, and each one usually brings its own insurance.
New York City handles sidewalks differently from most places, and it surprises people. City law shifted responsibility for maintaining most sidewalks onto the owner of the property that abuts them, so a sidewalk case is often a claim against a building owner rather than against the City. The main exception is smaller owner occupied residential buildings, where the City can remain responsible.
Where the City is the right defendant, a second requirement usually applies. For many street and sidewalk defects the City can only be held responsible if it received written notice of that specific condition beforehand, or created it through its own work, which is why defect maps, prior complaints, and repair records matter so much. Those rules are explained on our municipal liability page.
Property owners in New York City are required to clear snow and ice from the sidewalk within a set number of hours after the snowfall ends, with the window depending on the time of day the storm stopped. Missing that window is a strong starting point for a claim.
The defense you will hear is that the storm was still in progress. New York does give an owner a reasonable period after precipitation ends before the duty to clear kicks in, which is why weather records establishing exactly when the snow stopped are often the deciding evidence. Ice that formed from a leaking downspout, a broken gutter, or refreezing meltwater is a different situation entirely, because that condition was created by the property rather than by the weather.
Then the clock is much shorter. A claim against the City, the Housing Authority, a school authority, the transit system, or another public agency generally requires a formal notice of claim within about ninety days, with a shortened period to sue after that, and the agency can question you under oath before a lawsuit is filed.
People routinely spend those ninety days on medical treatment and only then start asking about a claim. If the building was public, treat the deadline as immediate.
Expect it. The two arguments are that the condition was open and obvious and that you were not watching where you were going.
Neither one ends a case. An open and obvious condition can still be unreasonably dangerous, and an owner is not excused from maintaining property simply because a hazard was visible. New York also applies comparative fault, which reduces a recovery by your share of responsibility rather than eliminating it. What defeats these arguments is the specific evidence: the lighting, the sight lines, what you were carrying, the flow of traffic, and how long the condition had been there.
Generally three years from the date of the injury against a private owner or company, and two years in a death case. Where a public agency is involved, a written notice of claim is usually due within about ninety days. Children have extended time.
The practical clock is shorter than any of those. Spills are cleaned, defects are repaired once a claim is made, and building video is typically overwritten within weeks.
Hip fractures in older adults deserve their own mention, because they frequently begin a decline in health and independence that is far more significant than the fracture alone, and a case has to account for that.
No. Our premises liability lawyers handle these cases on a contingency fee basis, which means there is no fee unless there is a recovery. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation.
Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower carries the case so you can focus on getting better. Our premises liability lawyers:
Our premises liability lawyers prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that is what makes an owner and its insurer take the injury seriously. A settlement on the right number is welcome. A settlement that shortchanges what the injury cost you is not one this firm accepts just because it comes early.
The condition that injured you has probably already been repaired, and the video that shows it will not last. The consultation is free, and Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower does not get paid unless you do.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
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