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Premises Liability · Constructive Notice · NYC §7-210

Slip and Fall Lawyers in New York City

A slip and fall case in New York is not a “she slipped, the store pays” situation. The law is specific about who has to prove what, and the specifics decide cases. The question is rarely whether someone fell. The question is whether the property owner knew about the condition that caused the fall — or should have known about it — and failed to do anything in time.

The work of a serious slip and fall case is the work of building that record.

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A slip and fall case in New York is not a “she slipped, the store pays” situation. The law is specific about who has to prove what, and the specifics decide cases. The question is rarely whether someone fell. The question is whether the property owner knew about the condition that caused the fall — or should have known about it — and failed to do anything in time.

The work of a serious slip and fall case is the work of building that record.

Under Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233 (1976), every property owner in New York owes a single duty of reasonable care under the circumstances to everyone who lawfully enters the property — invited customer, tenant, guest, delivery worker, repair contractor. The old categories that gave landowners reduced duties toward certain visitors were abandoned. The standard is uniform: reasonable care.

To recover damages, you generally have to prove one of three things:

  • The property owner created the dangerous condition that caused your fall;
  • The property owner had actual notice of the condition — they knew about it and failed to fix it; or
  • The property owner had constructive notice — the condition existed for long enough that a reasonable owner exercising reasonable care would have discovered and fixed it.

Most slip and fall cases live or die on the constructive notice question. A puddle that formed thirty seconds before you slipped is generally not a winning case. A puddle that had been on the floor for two hours, with visible foot-traffic marks running through it, often is.

The evidence that wins these cases is specific:

  • Surveillance footage from the property — preserved before the property owner has the chance to overwrite it.
  • Maintenance logs and inspection schedules — produced in discovery, often showing gaps that contradict the property’s later testimony.
  • Employee testimony from staff who were on the floor at the time.
  • Photographs of the condition immediately after the fall, taken by you, a witness, or first responders.
  • Prior complaints about the same condition or area, which speak to actual notice and to whether the owner’s inspection routine was reasonable.

The earlier a lawyer is on the case, the more of this evidence survives.

Grocery stores and supermarkets. Spilled produce, leaks from refrigeration units, recently-mopped floors without warning cones, ice from broken freezer cases.

Retail and department stores. Tracked-in rain, polished floors without runners, merchandise that fell into the aisle, escalator and elevator transitions.

Restaurants and bars. Spilled drinks, grease near the kitchen, broken steps to back rooms or bathrooms, ice spread on outdoor patios.

Residential lobbies and common areas. Worn or torn carpet, broken tile, water tracked in from rain, malfunctioning automatic doors, defective handrails.

Parking lots and garages. Potholes, cracked pavement, defective speed bumps, ice and snow accumulation, oil and fluid spills.

Sidewalks. Cracks, broken flagstones, lifted slabs, snow and ice — with the important caveat described below.

If you fell on a New York City sidewalk, the right defendant is usually not the City.

Under NYC Administrative Code §7-210, the property owner adjacent to the sidewalk is generally responsible for keeping the sidewalk in safe condition. The exception is one-, two-, and three-family residential properties used exclusively for residential purposes — those remain the City’s responsibility.

This is one of the most common reasons New Yorkers’ sidewalk cases get dismissed: the plaintiff named the City because the City owns the street, the City wins on summary judgment, and by then the 90-day Notice of Claim window has run against everyone else. The first hour of any sidewalk case is title research on the abutting property.

New York courts generally do not require a property owner to clear snow or ice while precipitation is actively falling. The owner gets a reasonable amount of time after the storm ends before liability for an uncleared walkway attaches. The question of when a storm has actually “ended” and what a reasonable cleanup window looks like is heavily litigated. Weather records, surveillance footage, and the timing of the property’s own snow-removal contracts are the proof points.

Comparative Fault

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New York is a pure comparative-fault state under CPLR §1411. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can recover even if your share was the majority. Wearing flip-flops on a wet floor, looking at your phone, taking a shortcut over snow — none of these necessarily end the case. They affect the percentage. We have seen serious recoveries on cases where the client was found 30% or even 50% at fault.