Was Homeowner Liable for Dangerous/Defective Condition?
Herb Karel, while at the home of a friend, Mary Ann Pizzorusso, which he had visited many times, decided to help her by changing the batteries in a smoke detector at the top of the stairs to the second floor. He fell. Litigation ensued.
Karel went up and down the stairs a couple of times just before he fell. He admitted at his deposition that he had not had any trouble with the stairs prior to his fall. And further admitted at his deposition that the stairs were adequately lit, and they were not worn out.
Karel testified at his deposition that the accident occurred when he was in the middle of the landing and he “reached for the banister and the step was a little uneven or something, I don’t know what it was, the first step, and I fell. I actually fell head over heels. The banister was a little low beyond the first landing. It was not up there — right up there. So I reached down, stepped down. The step was a little bit, I don’t know, maybe short. I’m not quite sure. I stepped over and just fell over, head over heels.”
Karel further explained how the accident happened, testifying that “I said I reached for the banister in my right hand and I stepped down on the first step, the first upper step, and as I said, it — I just fell. The banister was a little low. I may have been leaning forward trying to grab it and just fell over. I fell forward.” He clarified that “It was uneven, the first step. I leaned forward on the banister and it just made it — I was just going forward.” And further testified that he felt that there was not “enough room” and he fell forward. He did not explain what he meant by this statement.
Karel finally testified that “the first step is a little bit different from the rest of the steps. I didn’t realize that. When I stepped down and I tried to grab the handrail, it was a little bit below that, and I just lost my footing and fell down because of that. There wasn’t enough room at the top, either.”
Pizzorusso moved for summary judgment dismissing Karel’s complaint.
Pizzorusso had the prima facie burden of establishing her entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. The Court found that she established, prima facie, that she did not create the allegedly defective conditions with regard to the stairs, nor did she have actual or constructive notice of any allegedly defective conditions. And did so by submitting the report of her expert, a licensed professional engineer, who opined that the stairs were in good condition, with adequate lighting, a handrail and nonslip pads on each step. The expert further stated that the stairs did not violate any codes that applied. That sufficed to establish Pizzorusso’s prima facie defense.
In opposition, Karel contended that the accident occurred because there were two “notches in the hallway which reduced the walking area by two and a half inches on either side of the step causing a dangerous, trap-like condition. [And] the notches in the hallway… meant that the minimum width of the stair and approach landing were not consistent.” He submitted in his opposition the report of a previously-undisclosed expert, an architect, who admitted that the stairs were “largely code compliant.” The architect did not state that there was any code provision with which the stairs did not comply, so it appeared to the Court that “largely” should have been “entirely.”
Karel’s architect asserted that those code-compliant stairs nonetheless were hazardous because the notches at the top — where the wood of the floor met the molding at the side of the stairs — created “a hazardous, trap-like condition that would have been expected to have been a contributing cause to [the] accident.” But that was speculative and did not raise a triable issue of fact — particularly because Karel plainly testified at his deposition that he was in the center of the landing before he reached down for the banister, not at the edges.
Karel also argued that “as a result of the cutouts into the second floor landing, the handrail does not reach the very top stair tread which causes one to incorrectly perceive the distance to start [going] down the staircase.” In other words, Karel started down before he perceived the staircase and because the handrail was not accessible at the very top, “he was unable to effectively grab the handrail to prevent such a fall.” Again, the Court found that to be speculative because Karel clearly testified at his deposition that he was in the middle of the landing when he leaned over to grasp the banister, and fell over because in his mind there were two things wrong with it: (1) the top step was uneven — a finding that his own expert did not make; and (2) “the banister doesn’t come all the way down and it doesn’t go all the way up.” As stated, there was no indication that the banister did not comply with all applicable code provisions.
The Court found that, as a matter of law, Karel failed to rebut Pizzorusso’s prima facie showing that there was no hazardous condition with respect to the stairs or the handrail. The “notches” at the top of the landing did not create a “trap-like condition.” It appeared from the evidence submitted to the Court that Karel leaned over to grab the code-compliant handrail and lost his balance, unfortunately falling down the stairs and being injured in the fall. While sympathetic to his plight, the Court had no choice but to grant Pizzorusso summary judgment dismissing Karel’s complaint.
Parenthetically, the Court found from pictures that the “notches” were simply a decorative flourish in the house built in 1954.