Real Estate Law

DID SHE TRIP ON ART?

Nuri Taub tripped and fell while in space belonging to The Art Students League of New York.

In a personal injury lawsuit failed against the League in the New York County Supreme Court, Taub was unsure of the accident's precise cause, but speculated that it had been attributable to protruding metal that existed in the hallway area ("two weeks after the accident") or to the floor's "uneven transition."

Absent a definitive cause of her injuries, neither the Supreme Court nor the Appellate Division, First Department, would allow the case to continue. Here's how the AD1 summarized the problem:

There is no evidence probative of what caused plaintiff to trip and fall on the premises of defendant Art Students League. Plaintiff merely surmised, after seeing metal "sticking out" in the hallway two weeks after the accident, that the protruding metal had caused her fall. She never testified that an uneven transition in the floor precipitated her fall, the theory she now relies upon, and accordingly advances no non-speculative ground for such causation .... To the extent plaintiff attributes her fall to the uneven surface of the floor in the hallway, based on "circumstantial evidence," her arguments are unavailing ....

What is left unresolved, is whether that "protruding metal" was a work of art or a dangerous condition that had been ignored by the school. (Looks like we'll never know.)

For a copy of the Appellate Division's decision, please use this link: Taub v. Art Students League of N. Y.

From Real Estate Law Blog posted 2007-04-16.