I tripped and fell on a broken sidewalk in front of a deli in Brooklyn. Do I have a claim against the City?
In a prior post there was a case of a pedestrian who tripped and fell on a broken sidewalk in front of a house. In that post, the City of New York was the responsible party for maintaining sidewalks in the five Boroughs and would be responsible for failing to maintain the sidewalk.
However under NYC Administrative Code § 7-210, if a pedestrian falls on a sidewalk adjacent to a commercial establishment, the adjacent landowner is responsible for failure to maintain the sidewalk. (If a person trips and falls on a sidewalk adjacent to a one, two or three family residential property, then the City of New York is responsible for failure to properly maintain the sidewalk.)
Although the Administrative Code explicitly mentions only the property owner, sometimes the commercial property owner will require the tenant to maintain the sidewalk through a clause in the commercial lease. Thus, both the owner and tenant of a commercial property may have a duty to maintain the sidewalk adjacent to its property.
The injured person who fell next to a house in the prior post needed to file a notice of claim, attend a municipal hearing and file a summons and complaint all within a short statute of limitations. However, the person in this case gets the benefit of the normal three year statute of limitations for negligence cases.
By James Santner, Esq.
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