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New York Premises Liability Lawyer

Last updated on May 28, 2026

If you were hurt in a slip and fall, a trip and fall, or any other accident caused by a dangerous condition on someone else’s property, New York law may entitle you to compensation — but winning that compensation is rarely simple. Property owners and their insurers fight these cases hard, and they usually fight on one issue above all others: notice. Did the owner know, or should the owner have known, about the hazard in time to fix it? Whether you recover often comes down to how that single question is answered.

At MJP Injury Law, we built our premises liability practice around that question. Before we represented injured people, our firm defended property owners, corporations, and their insurers — so we know exactly how the defense tries to manufacture a “lack of notice” defense, and we know how to defeat it. We represent injured people throughout New York City and Long Island, and we develop every premises case as if it will be decided on a summary judgment motion and tried to a jury.

This page explains how premises liability law actually works in New York: the duty owners owe, the central role of notice, the specific legal theories that win these cases, the defenses you should expect, and what your case may be worth. If you would rather just talk to a lawyer, call 718-709-9678 for a free consultation.

Table of Contents

What Is Premises Liability in New York?

Premises liability is the body of law that holds property owners and those in control of property responsible when an unsafe condition on the property injures someone. Owners and occupiers in New York owe a duty to maintain their property in a reasonably safe condition and to address — or warn about — hazards they knew or should have known about.

These cases arise in nearly every kind of location, including:

Apartment buildings and condominiums — hallways, stairwells, lobbies, and entrances
Retail stores, supermarkets, and shopping centers
Restaurants, bars, hotels, and motels
Office buildings and commercial properties
Parking lots and parking garages
Public sidewalks abutting private property
Schools and other public buildings
Swimming pools and recreational facilities

The legal theory is consistent across all of them — a dangerous condition, the owner’s duty, notice of the hazard, and a resulting injury — but the proof varies enormously depending on the facts. The sections below walk through how these cases are actually won and lost.

What Makes MJP Injury Law Different

Most premises liability firms have only ever represented injured plaintiffs. Our perspective is different, and on these cases in particular, that difference matters.

We defended these cases before we prosecuted them. Earlier in his career, Michael J. Prisco represented property owners, building managers, and their insurance carriers against premises liability claims. He knows the entire defense playbook — the motions for summary judgment built on a claimed “lack of notice,” the argument that a defect was too “trivial” to be actionable, the effort to pin blame on the injured person through a comparative negligence defense, and the boilerplate “general cleaning routine” testimony offered to dodge responsibility. We know these moves because we used to make them, and we build each case from day one to defeat them.

We litigate to win on the law, not just to settle. Many of our premises cases are built toward a motion for partial summary judgment on liability — asking the court to rule, before trial, that the defendant is liable as a matter of law. Winning that motion transforms a case: it removes the question of fault from the jury and leaves only the question of how much the injuries are worth. Getting there requires meticulous development of the notice record, the right experts, and command of the controlling appellate authority. It is detailed, technical work, and it is exactly the work we do.

We handle our own appeals. Premises cases frequently turn on summary judgment rulings that get appealed — by us when a motion is wrongly denied, or by the defense when we win. Michael J. Prisco briefs and argues these appeals, including before the First and Second Departments, and serves as appellate counsel to other firms. In Graham v. New York City Housing Authority, 229 A.D.3d 605 (2d Dept. 2024), we took a denied summary judgment motion to the Appellate Division and won a reversal, establishing our client’s liability case as a matter of law. In Infantino v. Wells, 241 A.D.3d 518 (2d Dept. 2025), we represented the injured plaintiff and won a reversal of a “trivial defect” dismissal, reinstating the case. We build the record with the appeal in mind from the outset.

Representative Results

$3.5 Million — Slip and fall down a wet stairwell in a residential apartment building, causing spinal injuries that required surgery; Bronx County
$1.4 Million — Slip and fall in a residential apartment building hallway, causing a back injury that required surgery; Kings County
$775,000 — Fall into a pit caused by a collapsed cellar door in a residential apartment building, causing a left shoulder injury that required surgery; Bronx County

Notable Appellate Decisions

Graham v. New York City Housing Authority, 229 A.D.3d 605 (2d Dept. 2024) — Appellate Division, Second Department reversal won by MJP Injury Law, establishing that a property owner with actual knowledge of a recurring hazardous condition is charged with constructive notice of each recurrence and is liable as a matter of law where the condition is routinely left unaddressed.
Infantino v. Wells, 241 A.D.3d 518 (2d Dept. 2025) — Appellate Division, Second Department reversal of a “trivial defect” dismissal in a brick-walkway trip-and-fall case in which MJP Injury Law represented the injured plaintiff; the Court held the defendant failed to prove the defect was trivial as a matter of law, reinstating the case.

The Heart of Every Premises Case: Notice

Actual notice means the owner or its employee actually knew about the condition before the accident — for example, where a building superintendent testifies that he saw the hazardous condition before the date of the accident. Direct knowledge like that establishes actual notice.

Constructive notice is broader and is where most cases are fought. A defendant is charged with constructive notice — as a matter of law — when the dangerous condition was visible and apparent and existed for a long enough period of time that the owner should have discovered and corrected it. The controlling principle is that what matters is not only what the owner actually knew, but what it should have known under the circumstances. A property owner cannot “close its eyes” to conditions on its own property and then claim ignorance as a defense.

Two evidentiary tools drive constructive notice arguments:

Photographs. New York courts have long held that photographs can establish constructive notice as a matter of law — if they are taken reasonably close to the time of the accident and a witness testifies that the condition shown is substantially the same as it was at the time of the fall. Photographs of long-term deterioration — rotted wood, a chronically raised or cracked sidewalk flag — can demonstrate that a defect existed long enough to charge the owner with notice. New York courts have even relied on dated digital mapping images to show that a sidewalk defect was visible and present years before an accident, establishing that the condition existed long enough for the owner to have discovered and fixed it.

The duty to inspect. A property owner has a duty to perform reasonable inspections of its property, including any abutting sidewalk. When an owner has no program of regular inspections, New York courts will impute constructive notice as a matter of law — reasoning that had the owner conducted reasonable inspections, it would have discovered the condition. This is one of the most powerful tools in a plaintiff’s arsenal: in case after case, an owner’s admission that it had no inspection or maintenance routine is enough to establish constructive notice by itself.

We exploit this on offense, and we know how the defense tries to use it. On a defendant’s own motion for summary judgment, the burden is on the defendant to prove it lacked notice — and to do that, New York law requires the defendant to come forward with competent evidence of when the area was last cleaned or inspected relative to the accident. Vague reliance on “general cleaning routines” or standard maintenance procedures is legally insufficient. When a defendant’s witness cannot say when the specific area was last inspected, the defense fails — and we hold them to that standard.

The Legal Theories That Win Premises Cases

Beyond the core notice framework, several specific doctrines drive recovery in New York premises cases. Which one applies depends on the facts.

New York City Sidewalk Liability — Administrative Code § 7-210

In New York City, Administrative Code § 7-210 shifts responsibility for maintaining most sidewalks from the City to the abutting property owner (with a narrow exception for owner-occupied one-, two-, and three-family homes). That means when a pedestrian is injured by a defective sidewalk in front of a commercial building or larger residential property, the building owner — not the City — is typically the responsible defendant. A companion provision, Administrative Code § 19-152, defines what counts as a “substantial defect” the owner must repair, including height differentials and other specified conditions.

The “Trivial Defect” Battleground

Property owners routinely defend sidewalk and walkway cases by arguing that the defect was too trivial to be actionable. But the law does not let a defendant win simply by calling a defect small. There is no “minimal dimension test” and no per se rule that a defect must be a certain height or depth to be actionable. Instead, to establish that a defect is trivial, the defendant bears the burden of making a prima facie showing that the defect is — under all the circumstances — physically insignificant and that its characteristics and surroundings do not increase the risk it poses. Courts examine the full picture: the width, depth, elevation, irregularity, and appearance of the defect, along with the time, place, and circumstances of the injury. Only if the defendant meets that initial burden does it shift to the injured person. A defendant who relies on a vague post-accident photograph, without precise measurements and without addressing the surrounding circumstances, fails to meet that burden — and the case goes to the jury.

We litigate this issue at both the trial and appellate levels. In Infantino v. Wells, 241 A.D.3d 518 (2d Dept. 2025), we represented an injured client whose trip-and-fall case on a brick walkway had been dismissed by the trial court as “trivial.” We took the case to the Appellate Division, Second Department, which agreed that the defendant’s evidence — deposition testimony and photographs — was insufficient to establish the defect was trivial as a matter of law. The dismissal was reversed and the case reinstated resulting in a $250,000 dollar settlement. The lesson for injured people is important: a defect an owner dismisses as “too small” is very often actionable, and an improper trivial-defect dismissal can be overturned on appeal.

Created Conditions and the Contractor’s Duty

An owner — or a contractor working on the property — can be liable not just for failing to fix a hazard, but for creating one. A classic example: a cleaning contractor hoses down a building’s sidewalk during a busy morning and tracks water onto a smooth lobby floor without putting down mats, creating a slippery condition that causes a fall. New York courts hold that slippery conditions created by a defendant in the course of cleaning can give rise to liability — and, importantly, that even an outside contractor who is not in a direct contract with the injured person can be liable when it “launches a force or instrument of harm” through its own carelessness. This opens additional, and often better-insured, defendants in the right case.

Res Ipsa Loquitur — When the Accident Speaks for Itself

Some accidents are so plainly the result of negligence that the law allows an inference of fault from the event itself. Under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, a plaintiff can obtain summary judgment on liability where a structure within the defendant’s exclusive control fails catastrophically — for example, a corroded metal cellar or trap door that collapses under a person’s weight, dropping them into the pit below. Where the supporting structure was corroded and the owner performed no regular inspection or maintenance, the collapse itself supports a presumption of negligence the defendant must rebut. New York courts have granted plaintiffs summary judgment in exactly these circumstances.

Code Violations as Evidence of Negligence

Dangerous conditions that violate building and safety codes — a stairway missing required handrails, an excessively sloped tread, loose or raised carpeting on a staircase — strengthen a premises case considerably. Combined with proof that the owner had no regular inspection program, these conditions support constructive notice as a matter of law, often with the aid of an engineering expert who identifies the specific code violations.

Recurring Conditions — One of the Most Powerful Notice Theories

Some of the strongest premises cases involve a hazard that is not a one-time event but a recurring condition — a specific dangerous condition that appears again and again, that the owner knows about, and that the owner never truly fixes. New York law allows notice to be imputed to an owner under a recurring condition theory, and understanding how it works is often the difference between a case that survives summary judgment and one that does not.

The standard: “qualitatively different from a mere general awareness.”

A plaintiff does not establish a recurring condition simply by showing the owner knew, in a general way, that a hazard could arise. The proof must be specific. New York courts require evidence that the owner had knowledge of the particular dangerous condition — knowledge that is “qualitatively different from a mere general awareness that a dangerous condition may be present.” A general awareness that a floor might get wet during bad weather is not enough. But evidence that a specific recurring problem existed — water that seeped into one particular hallway from the same terrace door every time it rained heavily, a store display that became wobbly whenever customers pulled items from the bottom, an urn that routinely leaked onto the floor, a floor mat that curled up in the same spot nearly every day — is qualitatively different, and it is legally sufficient to impute notice.

Superficially cleaning up the aftermath is not a defense

This is the principle that wins these cases, and it is one most injured people — and many lawyers — never recognize. When an owner knows about a recurring hazard but, instead of fixing the underlying cause, simply cleans up the after-effects each time as part of routine maintenance, the owner remains on notice of a known, ongoing, recurring danger it has failed to adequately address. An owner that mops up the same rainwater leak again and again — but never repairs the leaking wall or door that lets the water in — has not discharged its duty; it has merely managed the symptom of a hazard it allowed to persist. New York courts have applied this same logic to a ceiling that a landlord repaired several times before a collapse without ever addressing the underlying leak. The owner’s repeated, superficial responses are themselves proof that it knew about — and failed to truly remedy — the recurring condition.

This is not abstract theory for our firm — it is law we have made. In Graham v. New York City Housing Authority, 229 A.D.3d 605 (2d Dept. 2024), MJP Injury Law secured a reversal from the Appellate Division, Second Department, in a case involving a tenant who slipped on water that had repeatedly seeped into an apartment-building hallway. The trial court had denied summary judgment, but on appeal we established that where a property owner has actual knowledge of a particular ongoing and recurring hazardous condition, it may be charged with constructive notice of each specific recurrence of that condition — and that an owner who routinely leaves such a condition unaddressed is liable as a matter of law. The Court agreed, reversed, and held that our client had established her entitlement to judgment on liability. That is the difference between a firm that explains the law and a firm that shapes it.

This theory is especially important in apartment-building and commercial cases involving water intrusion, ceiling collapse, leaks, and weather-related hazards, and it is an area where careful development of the maintenance history — what the owner knew, how often the condition recurred, and what the owner did and did not do about it — can establish liability as a matter of law.

Defenses You Should Expect — and How We Answer Them

Knowing the defense playbook from the inside, we prepare for these arguments before they are made:

“We had no notice.” We defeat this by developing the constructive-notice record early — photographs, the duration the condition existed, and above all the absence of any genuine inspection program.
“The defect was trivial.” We hold the defendant to its burden of precise measurements and full circumstances, rather than letting a vague photograph carry the day.
“The condition was open and obvious.” An open and obvious condition may relieve an owner of the duty to warn, but it does not relieve the owner of the separate duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition.
“It was a storm in progress.” This doctrine can limit liability during an active storm, but it is fact-specific and frequently does not apply — and it does not excuse hazards unrelated to the ongoing weather.
“You were partly at fault” (comparative negligence). New York follows pure comparative negligence, so partial fault does not bar recovery. In strong cases, we move to strike the comparative negligence defense entirely, removing it from the jury’s consideration.

Who Can Be Held Liable?

Premises cases frequently involve more than one responsible party, and identifying every one of them — and every available insurance policy — is a core part of our pre-suit investigation. Potentially liable parties include:

The property owner, who bears a non-delegable duty under New York law to maintain reasonably safe conditions
The property management company responsible for day-to-day operation, cleaning, and maintenance
A commercial or residential tenant that controls the space where the injury occurred — including, for a storefront, the non-delegable duty to maintain a safe means of egress
Contractors — janitorial, maintenance, or snow-removal companies — that created a hazard or failed to perform their work with reasonable care
Government entities, where the injury occurs on public property

A note on government defendants: claims against a city, county, or other public entity carry special, shorter procedural requirements — most importantly a Notice of Claim, generally due within 90 days of the accident — and, for many sidewalk and roadway defects, a prior written notice rule that requires the municipality to have received written notice of the specific defect before it can be held liable. These rules are technical and unforgiving, which is one more reason to involve a lawyer immediately.

What Is My Premises Liability Case Worth?

No two cases are alike, and no honest lawyer can promise a figure. The value of a premises case generally turns on the severity of the injury and the treatment it required — especially whether surgery was necessary — along with future medical needs, lost earnings, the strength of the liability case, and the available insurance coverage. Commercial property owners typically carry substantial liability coverage, often $1 million or more, which can make a meaningful recovery possible where the liability case is strong. We evaluate every case against what New York appellate courts have actually allowed for comparable injuries, so that any settlement we recommend reflects the real value of the claim.

What to Do After an Injury on Someone Else’s Property

The steps you take immediately after a fall can determine whether your case succeeds:

Seek medical attention right away, even if the injury seems minor.
Report the incident to the property owner or manager, and keep a copy of any report.
Photograph the hazard — and the surrounding area — as soon as possible, before it is repaired or changed. Because photographs taken close in time to the accident can establish notice, this evidence is invaluable.
Get the names and contact information of any witnesses.
Do not give a recorded statement to an insurance adjuster before speaking with a lawyer.
Contact a premises liability lawyer as soon as possible, while evidence is still fresh.

Owners and insurers move quickly to argue they had no notice or that the injured person was at fault. The sooner the evidence is preserved, the harder those arguments are to make.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between actual and constructive notice?

Actual notice means the property owner genuinely knew about the dangerous condition. Constructive notice means the condition was visible and apparent and existed long enough that the owner should have discovered and fixed it. Most cases turn on constructive notice, which can often be established by showing the owner had no regular inspection program.

How long do I have to file a premises liability claim in New York?

For most claims against a private property owner, the deadline is three years from the date of the accident. But if a government entity is involved, you generally must file a Notice of Claim within 90 days, and additional rules — such as the prior written notice requirement for many municipal sidewalk defects — may apply. Because these deadlines are short and strict, contact a lawyer promptly.

Who is responsible for a fall on a New York City sidewalk?

Under NYC Administrative Code § 7-210, the owner of the property abutting the sidewalk is generally responsible for maintaining it — not the City — with a narrow exception for owner-occupied one-, two-, and three-family homes.

The property owner says the defect was “too small” to sue over. Is that true?

Not necessarily. New York has no fixed minimum size, and a defendant cannot win simply by calling a defect trivial. The owner bears the burden of proving triviality with precise measurements and the full surrounding circumstances. Many defects owners call “trivial” are actionable as a matter of law.

Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?

Yes. New York follows pure comparative negligence, which allows recovery even if you were partially at fault, with your recovery reduced by your percentage of fault. In strong cases, we move to strike the comparative negligence defense entirely.

Do I have a case if I fell on water tracked into a lobby?

Possibly. If the owner created the condition — for example, by cleaning in a way that tracked water onto a smooth floor without mats — or knew of a recurring tracked-in-water condition and failed to take reasonable measures, there may be liability. These cases are fact-specific and turn on what the owner did and did not do.

The same hazard had happened before in the same spot. Does that help my case?

Often, significantly. If a specific dangerous condition recurred — the same leak, the same wet spot, the same defective fixture — and the owner knew about it, New York’s recurring condition theory can impute notice to the owner. Critically, an owner who repeatedly cleaned up the aftermath without ever fixing the underlying cause has not met its duty, and that pattern of superficial responses can itself establish liability. If you noticed the hazard had happened before, tell your lawyer — it can be decisive.

How much does it cost to hire MJP Injury Law?

Nothing upfront. We handle premises liability cases on a contingency fee basis — our fee is a percentage of the recovery and we are only paid if we recover for you. The consultation is free.

Premises Liability Cases We Handle

We handle the full range of premises liability claims across New York, including:

Contact a New York Premises Liability Lawyer Today

If you were injured by a dangerous condition on someone else’s property, the evidence that proves your case — the photographs, the witness accounts, the condition itself — can disappear within days. The sooner you have a lawyer working to preserve it, the stronger your case will be. There is no cost to find out where you stand.

Call 718-709-9678 for a free, confidential consultation, or contact us online. We don’t get paid unless we recover for you.

MJP Injury Law, Michael James Prisco, Esq.

Bronx (Main Office)

3425 E Tremont Ave, Suite 3

Bronx, NY 10465

718-709-9678

Long Island Office

187 Veterans Blvd

Massapequa, NY 11758

516-212-7559

Open every day, 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The information on this page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.