Morris v Solow Mgt. Corp. Townhouse Co., L.L.C.

Morris v Solow Mgt. Corp. Townhouse Co., L.L.C. 2007 NY Slip Op 09897 [46 AD3d 330] December 13, 2007 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Diane Morris, Respondent,
v
Solow Management Corporation Townhouse Company, L.L.C., et al., Appellants, et al., Defendants.

—[*1] Lawrence, Worden & Rainis, P.C., Melville (Roger B. Lawrence of counsel), for Solow Management Corporation Townhouse Company, L.L.C., Solow Building Company, L.L.C., East Sixty-Seventh Street Townhouse Building Corporation and Sheldon Solow, appellants.

Harrington, Ocko & Monk, LLP, White Plains (I. Paul Howansky of counsel), for HRH Construction Corporation and HRH Corporation, appellants.

Eli Attia, appellant pro se.

Kaiser Saurborn & Mair, P.C., New York City (David N. Mair of counsel), for respondent.

Orders, Supreme Court, New York County (Alice Schlesinger, J.), entered July 27, 2006, which denied defendants-appellants' motions for summary judgment, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, the motions granted and the complaint dismissed as against appellants. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment accordingly.

Appellants' motions for summary judgment should have been granted in this case where the decedent allegedly fell four stories through a defective window/sliding-glass door in his apartment. The record evidence establishes that no one witnessed the decedent's fall, and there is simply no evidence that any of the alleged defects in the window/sliding-glass door, or its installation, caused the fatal fall. It was just as likely that the decedent's fall had nothing to do with those alleged defects as that it did, and accordingly, no triable issue has been raised as to whether responsibility for the fall may be placed upon appellants (see McNally v Sabban, 32 AD3d 340, 341 [2006]; Lynn v Lynn, 216 AD2d 194 [1995]). The Noseworthy doctrine (see Noseworthy v City of New York, 298 NY 76, 80-81 [1948]) does not apply in this case inasmuch [*2]as "the parties were on equal footing with respect to knowledge of the occurrence" (Lynn v Lynn, 216 AD2d at 195; see also Walsh v Murphy, 267 AD2d 172 [1999]). Concur—Friedman, J.P., Marlow, Nardelli and Catterson, JJ.