Majority
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Markey, J.), dated September 10, 2009, which denied its motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint is granted.
The plaintiff allegedly was injured when she slipped and fell in the defendant’s store. She could not identify the reason for her fall, but concluded that she slipped on ice cream that an employee noticed on the floor a few feet away approximately 20 minutes after the accident. There were no skid or track marks where the ice cream was located and no evidence as to how long it had been on the floor. After discovery was completed, the defendant moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. The Supreme Court denied the motion. We reverse.
In a slip-and-fall case, a plaintiffs inability to identify the cause of the fall is fatal to the cause of action because a finding that the defendant’s negligence, if any, proximately caused the plaintiffs injuries would be based on speculation (see Louman v
Cases cited
- Louman v. Town of Greenburgh 60 AD3d 915 at 916 p. 811
- Manning v. 6638 18th Avenue Realty Corp. 28 AD3d 434 at 435 p. 811
- Oettinger v. Amerada Hess Corp. 15 AD3d 638 at 639 p. 811
- Costantino v. Webel 57 AD3d 472 p. 811
- Slattery v. O'Shea 46 AD3d 669 at 670 p. 811
- Bottiglieri v. Wheeler 38 AD3d 818 p. 811
- Melnikov v. 249 Brighton Corp. 72 AD3d 760 at 761 p. 811
- Hartman v. Mountain Valley Brew Pub, Inc. 301 AD2d 570 p. 811