| Skouras v New York City Tr. Auth. |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 01328 [48 AD3d 547] |
| February 13, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Peter Skouras, Appellant, v New York City TransitAuthority, Respondent. |
—[*1] Wallace D. Gossett, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Lawrence A. Silver of counsel), forrespondent.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the plaintiff appeals from an order ofthe Supreme Court, Queens County (Cullen, J.), entered January 19, 2007, which granted thedefendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
The plaintiff slipped and fell on a thin layer of snow covering the steps of a stairway leadingfrom the mezzanine of the 104th Street elevated train station to the street. He alleged that he fellwhen his foot slipped out from under him at the edge of the platform at the top of the stairs, as hereached for the bannister.
A landowner generally cannot be held liable for injuries sustained as a result of slipperyconditions that occur during an ongoing storm, or for a reasonable time thereafter (see Solazzo v New York City Tr. Auth.,6 NY3d 734 [2005]; Powell vCedar Manor Mut. Hous. Corp., 45 AD3d 749 [2007]; Gray v City of New York, 33 AD3d857 [2006]). The defendant established, prima facie, through climatological data and otherproof, that there was a storm in progress at the time of the plaintiff's fall. The plaintiff'sopposition to the motion for summary judgment was insufficient to raise a triable issue of fact asto whether there was a storm in progress (see DeStefano v City of New York, 41 AD3d 528 [2007]).[*2]
The plaintiff's assertions, made in opposition to thesummary judgment motion, that he fell as a result of the defendant's employees' snow removaloperations, are premised solely on surmise and conjecture. There is no evidence in the record tosupport a determination that the transit employees' snow operations had addressed the stairs priorto the plaintiff's fall, or that the condition that caused his fall was other than that which hetestified to, a thin layer of snow on the stairs that had not been cleaned. Speculation and surmiseare insufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment (see Powell v Cedar Manor Mut. Hous. Corp., 45 AD3d 749[2007]; DeStefano v City of New York,41 AD3d 528 [2007]; Gray vCity of New York, 33 AD3d 857 [2006]; Myrow v City of Poughkeepsie, 3 AD3d 480 [2004]).
The defendant did not have a duty to warn the plaintiff of the open and obvious condition ofnaturally accumulated snow on the stairs (see Rao-Boyle v Alperstein, 44 AD3d 1022 [2007]; DeMarraisv Swift, 283 AD2d 540 [2001]).
Accordingly, the Supreme Court properly granted the defendant's motion for summaryjudgment dismissing the complaint. Lifson, J.P., Ritter, Angiolillo and Carni, JJ., concur.