Santana v Bronx-Lebanon Hosp. Ctr. Alliance IPA, Inc.

[*1] Santana v Bronx-Lebanon Hosp. Ctr. Alliance IPA, Inc. 2013 NY Slip Op 50787(U) Decided on May 16, 2013 Appellate Term, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.

Decided on May 16, 2013
SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
PRESENT: Lowe, III, P.J., Shulman, Hunter, Jr, JJ
570165/13.

Lisette Santana, Plaintiff-Appellant, - -

against

Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center Alliance IPA, Inc., Defendant-Respondent.

Plaintiff appeals from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Bronx County (Mitchell J. Danziger, J.), entered November 16, 2012, which granted defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

Per Curiam.

Order (Mitchell J. Danziger, J.), entered November 16, 2012, affirmed, with $10 costs, for the reasons stated by Mitchell J. Danzinger, J. at Civil Court.

In affirming the summary judgment dismissal of this trip-and-fall negligence action, we emphasize that neither plaintiff nor her witness was able to state on the basis of personal knowledge that a "folded" mat or carpet caused the accident. At deposition, plaintiff acknowledged that she did not see a mat or other floor covering either before or after she fell; plaintiff's witness testified that, although she did not actually see plaintiff fall, she (the witness) assumed (or, as the witness put it, that it was her "deduction") that plaintiff "must have" tripped on a mat that the witness claimed to have already walked past. This was mere surmise, insufficient to raise a triable issue of fact (see Fernandez v VLA Realty, LLC, 45 AD3d 391 [2007]; see also Russo v Feder, Kaszovitz, Isaacson, Weber, Skala & Bass, LLP, 301 AD2d 63, 68 [2002]).

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.
Decision Date: May 16, 2013