| Alston v Zabar's & Co., Inc. |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 01334 [92 AD3d 553] |
| February 21, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Margaret Alston, Appellant, v Zabar's & Co., Inc., DoingBusiness as Zabar's Deli and Gourmet Foods, et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Hammill, O'Brien, Croutier, Dempsey, Pender & Koehler, P.C., Syosset (James V. Deegan ofcounsel), for respondents.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Joan A. Madden, J.), entered September 2, 2010,which, insofar as appealed from, granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissingthe complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Defendants met their initial burden to demonstrate their entitlement to judgment as a matterof law by submitting plaintiff's deposition testimony stating that she did not know what causedher fall and did not observe anything on the floor before or after the accident (see Raghu v New York City Hous.Auth., 72 AD3d 480, 482 [2010]; Reed v Piran Realty Corp., 30 AD3d 319, 320 [2006], lv denied8 NY3d 801 [2007]).
Plaintiff failed to meet her burden to raise a triable issue of fact. The affidavit by an expertengineer was insufficient to raise a question of fact as to whether the combination of the slope ofthe floor and the coefficient of friction on parts of the floor lacking anti-slip strips caused theaccident, given that the expert failed to establish that plaintiff was walking on an area without thestrips immediately prior to the accident (see Sarmiento v C & E Assoc., 40 AD3d 524, 526-527 [2007]; Sanders v Morris Hgts. Mews Assoc.,69 AD3d 432 [2010]). Moreover, the expert's affidavit failed to show that the condition ofthe accident site at the time of the examination was the same as at the time of the accident(see Santiago v United Artists Communications, 263 AD2d 407, 407-408 [1999]).Concur—Andrias, J.P., Saxe, Acosta, Freedman and Richter, JJ.