PLAINTIFF WAS UNABLE TO SHOW THAT THE MUNICIPALITY HAD NOTICE
After she tripped and fell on a ramp that she claimed was “too steep,” C. C. filed a personal injury lawsuit against the Village of Wappingers Falls with the Dutchess County Supreme Court.
When the Village’s motion to dismiss the case was subsequently granted, C.C. appealed.
On its review of the record, the Appellate Division, Second Department, noted that negligence liability couldn’t be readily applied when a municipality had a “prior written notice law.”
When such a law exists, and a municipality establishes the non-existence of notice, the burden shifts to the injured party to demonstrate the application of an exception, such as “‘the municipality affirmatively created the defect through an act of negligence or that a special use resulted in a special benefit to the locality.’”
Since C.C. was unable to show that one of the exceptions existed, and in the absence of “triable issue of fact,” the AD2 left the outcome undisturbed.
Now that was some Whopper ….
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