CITY COULDN’T PROVE SERVICE OF FOLLOW-UP NOTICE
After he fell down a staircase in a Brooklyn building owned by the New York City Housing Authority, R.A. filed a personal-injury lawsuit alleging that the handrail (on the right side of the stairway) was missing.
When the Kings County Supreme Court dismissed the case because R.A.failed to appear for a special pre-litigation hearing (to which the defendants were entitled pursuant to General Municipal Law § 50-h), an appeal to the Appellate Division, Second Department, followed.
While local law unequivocally provides that the attendance at this special hearing is a “condition precedent” to lawsuit’s filing against the government, because the defendants had adjourned the original hearing date, and weren’t able to competently show that R.A. had received notice of the rescheduled date and time, the AD2 thought the defendants had failed to establish entitlement to the litigation’s dismissal and reversed the underlying determination.
Think that restored R.A.’s hope?
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