In a premises liability case, a lot with regard to who is responsible for somebody’s injury depends on where the accident happened. Our office I’m sitting in now is on Long Island. We have offices in the city. So the law is very different, yet similar, in the city of New York as compared to, say, Long Island, Nassau County, Suffolk County.
To give you a general explanation, in the city of New York, you have roadways filled with potholes, as we see all the time. That’s the City of New York’s responsibility. But there are other entities that may be responsible. There are utility companies, phone companies, construction companies.
When somebody’s injured in a roadway, which is the street, a thorough investigation is needed to see who, in addition to the City of New York, might be a responsible party. That’s the street.
Now, when you talk about the sidewalk, it’s different. The law in New York changed not that many years ago, where the property owners, the abutting landowners of a defect in a sidewalk, have a certain amount of responsibility depending on the type of property. So it gets a little bit more complicated.
For example, a commercial property, if there’s a defect on the sidewalk, the commercial property owner is responsible for the maintenance or repair of that defect, as opposed to, say, a one-, two-, or three-family home located in the City of New York. That becomes something that the city should have more responsibility for.
So, a thorough investigation is always needed to see what prior repairs were done, where prior work was done. But depending on where that accident occurs and where somebody’s injured really dictates who was at fault.
Now, on Long Island, it’s a little bit different. We have a lot of villages. We have a lot of towns. We, of course, have Nassau and Suffolk County. So you really have to learn and know all of the different village codes and town codes and regulations to see who the responsible party is.
It may be a municipality, which adds a lot to our job. There are many prerequisites that are required when starting a lawsuit against a municipality, and sometimes it’s the property owner, and you have to balance the two.
You have to know all of the facts. You have to know the applicable laws to determine who is responsible, and that’s something that has to be done very early on in the case.
I have a team of investigators and people who work with me every day to make sure that we leave no stone unturned and find out who the proper party is when somebody’s injured on property, on a premises, whether it be a sidewalk or even a stairway and things of that nature.