Personal Injury
In short
An injured person must prove the defendant owned, occupied or controlled the property, that a dangerous condition existed, that the defendant created it or had actual or constructive notice with a reasonable chance to fix it, and that it caused the injury. Notice is the element most cases turn on. A claim against a municipality adds a 90 day notice of claim and usually prior written notice of the specific defect.
Four things, and the third is where most cases are won or lost:
Falling is not enough. A property owner is not automatically liable because someone was hurt on the property. Without notice, there is no case, however real the injury.
| Type | What it means | How it is proved |
|---|---|---|
| Created the condition | The defendant’s own act made the hazard | No notice needed at all |
| Actual notice | They actually knew about this specific condition | Complaints, work orders, incident reports, employee testimony |
| Constructive notice | The defect was visible and apparent, and had been there long enough to be found and fixed | Testimony about duration, the state of the substance, inspection records |
The rule comes from Gordon v. American Museum of Natural History, 67 N.Y.2d 836 (1986): to constitute constructive notice, a defect must be visible and apparent and must exist for a sufficient length of time before the accident to permit the defendant’s employees to discover and remedy it.
The half of Gordon that usually gets left out matters just as much: a general awareness that a dangerous condition might be present is not enough. Notice has to attach to the specific condition that caused the fall. Gordon himself lost on that point.
Most defendants move for summary judgment arguing no notice. To succeed they have to do something specific, and frequently do not.
The Second Department, which governs Nassau County, requires a defendant to offer evidence of when the area was last cleaned or inspected relative to the time of the fall. Mere reference to general cleaning and inspection practices is insufficient.
That distinction decides a great many cases. A store manager testifying that “we sweep regularly” or “porters walk the floor throughout the day” has said nothing about this aisle on this afternoon, and courts routinely deny the motion on that basis.
Possibly both. New York applies a single standard of reasonable care under the circumstances, established in Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233 (1976), which abolished the old categories of invitee, licensee and trespasser as the test for what duty is owed.
| Party | When they are liable |
|---|---|
| Owner in possession | Ordinary reasonable care |
| Tenant or occupant | For the area it occupies and controls, subject to the lease |
| Out-of-possession landlord | Generally not liable unless it kept control and had a duty to repair by contract, statute or course of conduct |
| Managing agent or contractor | Usually owes nothing to a non-contracting visitor, subject to narrow exceptions |
| Snow removal contractor | A contract alone does not create liability to a pedestrian |
Under Espinal v. Melville Snow Contractors, 98 N.Y.2d 136 (2002), a contractor can be liable to someone outside the contract in only three situations: where it launched a force or instrument of harm, where the injured person detrimentally relied on continued performance, or where it entirely displaced the owner’s duty to maintain the property.
In Nassau County, usually not, and a great deal of what is published about this is New York City law being applied where it does not belong.
New York City Administrative Code 7-210 makes abutting property owners liable for sidewalk defects, with an exemption for owner-occupied one to three family homes. That is a local law of New York City. It has no force in Nassau County or anywhere else on Long Island.
What governs here is the common law rule from Hausser v. Giunta, 88 N.Y.2d 449 (1996): responsibility for a defective public sidewalk rests with the municipality, not the abutting owner. An abutting owner is liable only where it:
That last point is the one that catches people. Many Long Island villages have ordinances telling owners to clear or repair their sidewalks. An ordinance that merely imposes a duty does not create liability to an injured pedestrian. It must expressly say so.
There is a genuine Nassau exception. The City of Long Beach has long had a code provision expressly making abutting owners and occupants liable for injuries caused by failing to maintain the sidewalk or remove snow and ice. It was that provision the Court of Appeals considered in Hausser.
Not on Long Island, and not as a basis for a lawsuit anywhere.
The four hour figure comes from a New York City sanitation provision that carries fines for failing to clear a sidewalk. The Court of Appeals has said plainly that the City Council imposed that duty with accompanying fines, but not liability in tort. Civil liability in New York City runs through a different section entirely.
It is imported into slip and fall articles constantly, including articles written for Long Island readers, where it has no application at all.
A property owner is not liable for an icy condition occurring during an ongoing storm or for a reasonable time afterward. The rationale is that it is unreasonable to require someone to clear a surface while precipitation is still falling.
Three limits are worth knowing:
No. There is no minimum height or depth rule in New York.
This is settled by Trincere v. County of Suffolk, 90 N.Y.2d 976 (1997), a Long Island case: there is no minimal dimension test, and granting summary judgment based exclusively on the dimensions of a defect is unacceptable. Courts must examine the width, depth, elevation, irregularity and appearance of the defect together with the time, place and circumstances of the injury.
Two honest qualifications, because they are usually omitted:
An open and obvious condition removes the duty to warn. It does not remove the duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition, and it usually goes to the injured person’s share of the fault rather than ending the case.
Be careful with the confident version of this you will read elsewhere. A defendant can still win by showing the condition was both open and obvious and, as a matter of law, not inherently dangerous. Whether something is open and obvious is judged on the totality of the circumstances and is usually a question for a jury, because the nature or location of a hazard can make it easy to overlook even when technically visible.
Then two additional requirements stack on top of everything above, and either one can end the case.
| Requirement | Timing |
|---|---|
| Prior written notice of the specific defect | Must have been given before your accident |
| Notice of claim | 90 days after the claim arises |
| 50-h examination, if demanded | Before suit |
| Lawsuit filed | 1 year and 90 days |
Prior written notice is a condition precedent. Where a municipality has such a law, actual or constructive knowledge of the defect does not substitute. Someone must have given written notice of that specific defect, to the designated officer, before you fell.
There are exactly two exceptions: where the municipality created the defect through an affirmative act of negligence, and where a special use conferred a benefit on it. The Court of Appeals has expressly declined to recognize a third exception for constructive notice. Once the municipality shows it had no prior written notice, the burden shifts to the injured person to establish an exception.
The designated recipient varies by municipality, and notice to the wrong office does not count.
| Municipality | Notice goes to | Local quirk |
|---|---|---|
| Nassau County | Office of the County Attorney, by certified or registered mail | Expressly covers sidewalks, parking fields, stairways, ramps, curbs and snow or ice, not just roadways |
| Town of Hempstead | Town Clerk or Commissioner of Highways | The notice must be made by the witness to the condition |
| Town of North Hempstead | Superintendent of Highways or Town Clerk | Must be manually subscribed by the complainant |
| Town of Oyster Bay | Town Clerk | Covers snow and ice; facility must be town maintained |
| City of Glen Cove | City Clerk or Director of Public Works | Covers sidewalks and walkways |
Nassau also contains roughly sixty incorporated villages, each with its own provision and its own designated officer. Village requirements have to be checked one by one.
No. The 2026 amendment that bars recovery where an injured person is more at fault than the defendant applies only to motor vehicle actions under the no-fault law.
A slip, trip or fall remains under CPLR 1411(a) pure comparative fault: your share reduces the award proportionally and never bars recovery. And under CPLR 1412, comparative fault is an affirmative defense the property owner has to plead and prove. See comparative negligence in New York.
Premises cases are brought in Supreme Court, Nassau County, at 100 Supreme Court Drive in Mineola, and claims against Nassau County must be venued in Nassau under County Law 52. Appeals go to the Appellate Division, Second Department.
Related: notice of claim requirements, deadlines for injury claims, and personal injury representation on Long Island.
This guide is general information about New York law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and penalties change, and how the law applies depends on facts no webpage knows. Check the linked primary source, and speak with a lawyer about your own case.
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