LoGiudice v Silverstein Props., Inc.

LoGiudice v Silverstein Props., Inc. 2008 NY Slip Op 01409 [48 AD3d 286] February 14, 2008 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Carl LoGiudice, Respondent,
v
Silverstein Properties, Inc., et al., Appellants and Third-Party Plaintiffs. American Building Maintenance, Co., Third-Party Defendant-Appellant.

—[*1] Jeffrey Samel & Partners, New York City (David Samel of counsel), for appellants.

Dinkes & Schwitzer, P.C., New York City (Souren A. Israelyan of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Louis B. York, J.), entered December 18, 2006, which, in an action for personal injuries, denied defendants' and third-party defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Summary judgment dismissing the complaint is not warranted even assuming, in favor of defendants building owner and management company, that they did not have notice of any defect in the allegedly "curled-up" rain mat over which plaintiff, an employee of third-party defendant building maintenance contractor, tripped upon arriving for work in the early morning, and that fault for the accident can be ascribed only to third-party defendant, whose night-shift employee put the mat down before any of defendants' employees had arrived for work. For this building that was open to the public, defendants had a nondelegable duty to provide the public, including third-party defendant's employees, with reasonably safe means of ingress and egress, and can be held vicariously liable for any negligence by third-party defendant that caused the entrance to become unsafe (Backiel v Citibank, 299 AD2d 504 [2002]; see generally Kleeman v Rheingold, [*2]81 NY2d 270, 274 [1993]). Issues of fact exist as to whether, inter alia, the mat made the entrance to the building unsafe. Concur—Andrias, J.P., Friedman, Sweeny and Moskowitz, JJ.