| Braun v Weissman |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 09175 [68 AD3d 797] |
| December 8, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Jacob Braun et al., Appellants, v Joan Weissman et al.,Respondents. |
—[*1] Gannon, Rosenfarb & Moskowitz, New York, N.Y. (David A. Drossman of counsel), forrespondents.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, etc., the plaintiffs appeal from an orderof the Supreme Court, Richmond County (Minardo, J.), dated July 14, 2008, which granted thedefendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the defendants' motion forsummary judgment dismissing the complaint is denied.
The injured plaintiff allegedly slipped and fell on ice on a sidewalk abutting the defendants'property. The injured plaintiff and his wife, suing derivatively, commenced this action againstthe defendants. The defendants moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint,contending that they did not create the alleged icy condition by negligently performing snowremoval. The Supreme Court granted the motion. We reverse.
An owner of property abutting a public sidewalk is under no duty to pedestrians to "removeice and snow that naturally accumulates upon the sidewalk unless a statute or ordinancespecifically imposes tort liability for failing to do so" (Bruzzo v County of Nassau, 50 AD3d 720, 721 [2008]; see Crudo v City of New York, 42AD3d 479, 480 [2007]; Wu ZhouWu v Korea Shuttle Express Corp., 23 AD3d 376, 377 [2005]; Negron v G.R.A.Realty, 307 AD2d 282 [2003]). In the absence of such a statute or ordinance, the owner canbe held liable only if he or she, or someone on his or her behalf, "undertook snow and iceremoval efforts which made the naturally-occurring conditions more hazardous" (Robles v City of New York, 56 AD3d647, 647 [2008] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Bruzzo v County of Nassau,50 AD3d at 721; Martinez v City ofNew York, 20 AD3d 513 [2005]).
Here, since the defendants and their children lived in the premises, a one-family house, thepremises were exempt from liability imposed pursuant to Administrative Code of the City ofNew York § 7-210 (b) for negligent failure to remove snow and ice from the sidewalk.Nevertheless, the defendants, as movants, failed to establish, prima facie, that their snowremoval work did not create the alleged icy condition. Under the circumstances, a triable issue offact exists as to whether the ice upon which the injured plaintiff slipped was formed when snowpiles created [*2]by the defendants' snow removal efforts meltedand refroze (see Keese v ImperialGardens Assoc., LLC, 36 AD3d 666, 667-678 [2007]; Caro v Skyline TerraceCoop., 132 AD2d 512, 513 [1987]; see also Smith v County of Orange, 51 AD3d 1006 [2008]; Ricca v Ahmad, 40 AD3d 728[2007]; Knee v Trump Vil. Constr.Corp., 15 AD3d 545 [2005]). Skelos, J.P., Eng, Austin and Roman, JJ., concur.