Article by Capehart Scatchard

Typically, in New York City, the Big Apple Pothole and Sidewalk Protection Committee (“Big Apple”)’s maps provide legally sufficient notice to the City of dangerous potholes or sidewalk conditions. See https://www.nystla.org/index.cfm?pg=Pothole for more information. Big Apple was established in 1982 by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association to map the City’s 13,000 miles of sidewalks in New York that were capable of causing personal injury. See https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/nyregion/04pothole.html for more information.

These maps were presented annually to the City of New York Department of Transportation (“DOT”) to provide them with the current status of the various sidewalks in the City. For many years, the Big Apple maps forced the City of New York to pay out millions of dollars in claims for personal injuries sustained on City sidewalks. However, in De Zapata v. City of New York, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court recently decided that the City did not have the proper notice.

Plaintiff was injured on January 24, 2014 when she fell while walking along a public sidewalk in front of a property located at 96 Hemlock Street, Brooklyn, NY. The Plaintiff filed a Notice of Claim against the City of New York on April 16, 2014, asserting a claim against the City for physical injuries from the hazardous snow and ice that was in the depressed and broken section of the sidewalk.

The City moved to dismiss, arguing that it did not have prior written notice of the alleged icy condition and that, therefore, it lacked constructive notice of any icy condition. In opposition, Plaintiff pointed to her §50-h testimony, General Municipal Law §50-h, photographs, and the map served upon the DOT by Big Apple. Specifically, Plaintiff contended that the Big Apple map constituted prior notice and constructive notice of the defect.

The Administrative Code of the City of New York § 7-201(c), specifically limits the City’s responsibility over municipal streets and sidewalks by allowing for liability only if the City had actual notice of the defect at that location. Katz v. City of New York, 87 N.Y.2d 241, 243. Therefore, the Plaintiff must plead the City had prior written notice of the defect in order to maintain an action against the City. Katz, supra, 87 N.Y.2d at 243. Importantly, “Transitory conditions present on a roadway or walkway such as debris, oil, ice, or sand have been found to constitute potentially dangerous conditions for which prior written notice must be given before liability may be imposed upon a municipality.” Farrell v. City of New York, 49 A.D.3d 806, 807.

With that legal background, the Appellate Division held that the City was entitled to summary judgment and a dismissal of all of Plaintiff’s claims against it. The basis for this decision was that the Big Apple map only indicated that the sidewalk abutting the property located at 96 Hemlock Street, Brooklyn, NY had an “[e]xtended section of raised or uneven sidewalk.” However, the Court held that the true defect, as established throughout the case, was the existence of a “hole,” “ditch,” or “icy condition” that Plaintiff claimed to have caused her fall. Therefore, the Court found that the Big Apple map did not provide adequate notice of the sidewalk’s dangerous condition to the City.